The legal team for Donald Trump is reportedly considering a request to move his criminal trial case from Manhattan to a courthouse in Staten Island due to concerns the former president won’t get a fair trial.
Trump’s lawyers have not decided whether to submit a request to move the trial as the legal team is waiting to see what the specific charges in the case are, a source familiar with the situation told Bloomberg News. Trump is expected to appear at a Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday for his arraignment, during which his charges will be unsealed for the first time.
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It’s unlikely that prosecutors will agree to move the trial as defendants are not entitled to pick juries that may lean more favorably toward them, according to legal experts.
“The only reason he would try to move venues to Staten Island is that he thinks — based on voter registration — that that’s a friendlier potential jury pool for him,” Jennifer Rodgers, a former federal prosecutor, told the outlet. “That’s not going to fly.”
The expected surrender comes after a grand jury in Manhattan voted on Thursday to indict the former president on charges related to a hush-money case that emerged during Trump’s first White House bid in 2016. The indictment marks the first time a former president has been criminally charged.
Trump was initially asked to surrender on Friday, but his lawyers told New York officials that the former president’s security detail would need more time to prepare, according to the Associated Press.
Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing and has accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of leading a politically motivated prosecution against him. He has also denied any affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, who had been looking to make her story known during Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The hush money case centers on testimony from Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to paying two women who accused Trump of sexual affairs to be silent, including Daniels. As part of the scheme, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 and was later reimbursed by the Trump Organization.
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Manhattan prosecutors later opened an investigation into whether Trump falsified business records to list the reimbursement as a legal expense. Such a crime is a misdemeanor in New York but could be increased to a felony if Bragg’s office argues the fraud was intended to conceal a second crime.
At the time of Cohen’s trial, federal prosecutors did not press charges against Trump due to guidance from the Justice Department that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. However, prosecutors revived discussions about possible charges shortly before Trump left office in 2021.
