Failed one-term former president Donald Trump may fire his legal team to delay his upcoming trial in New York on charges of having paid hush money to a woman he had an affair with, according to former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.
The hush money trial is scheduled to begin on April 15, and other criminal trials are also likely to begin later this year, right as the disgraced ex-president is in the middle of his 2024 bid for the White House.
Writing on Substack, Vance notes, “With trial only two weeks away, Trump is showing increasing signs of desperation,” she wrote. “There are also the time-honored strategies of the desperate: getting sick or finding a sick or dying family member and firing your lawyers.”
So what happens if Trump does indeed fire his attorneys? Vance explains:
“This can be a difficult one because defendants are entitled to counsel of their choosing, and lawyers are entitled to sufficient time to prepare. But Trump has a lot of lawyers on his team and the Judge has to be prepared for this one.
“Trump would have to argue a significant issue has developed with his lawyers before the Judge would agree to let them out of the case, and it’s going to be difficult to do that with all of them. The Judge could tell him to go ahead with the remaining lawyers, because if Trump does this at the eleventh hour, it’s going to look manufactured.
“But it’s still an issue the Judge has to be careful about to avoid problems on appeal, and so far, Judge Merchan has shown himself to be a careful, meticulous jurist.”
Given that Trump has already proven his fear of what might be revealed during a trial, it seems fair to speculate that he might indeed attempt a Hail Mary pass, if only to buy himself more time and shuffle the deck so he can regroup and try to push the matter further down the road.
What remains to be seen is if any judge will go along with such a request.
