The first criminal trial of former President Donald Trump is set to begin in April after a judge rejected Trump’s claims of prosecutorial misconduct. That comes as a New York appeals court reduced the amount he needs to post in bond for a nearly $300 million civil fraud ruling and granted him 10 more days to secure that money. William Brangham discussed the latest with Andrea Bernstein of NPR.

William Brangham:

The first criminal trial of former President Donald Trump is set to begin next month, after a judge today rejected Trump's claims of prosecutorial misconduct.

That comes as a New York appeals court reduced the amount Trump needs to post in a bond for a civil fraud ruling by nearly $300 million and granted him an additional 10 days to secure that money.

Andrea Bernstein has been covering all of the former president's legal matters for NPR, and she joins us now.

Andrea, so good to see you.

Let's first talk about this hush money case that you were in the courtroom for today. Trial was supposed to start today, but that was derailed by the sudden arrival of thousands of pages of new evidence. And the — Trump's lawyers argued that there was something nefarious going on here, but it sounds like the judge rejected those accusations.

Andrea Bernstein, NPR Contributor:

Right.

So, even though this case was indicted almost a year ago, it took Trump's lawyers until January to subpoena federal prosecutors, who had in 2018 investigated Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen, who is going to be the witness — main witness in this case. They had investigated Cohen for campaign finance violations, including having paid Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor who says she had an affair with Trump, the hush money payments.

So Trump's team didn't subpoena those records until January, and they got just this month over 100,000 pages of documents. Now, the DA says most of them are not relevant, but what Trump's lawyers argued was that the DA's office was committing some kind of malfeasance by not having requested these documents earlier.

And the DA, when the documents began to be produced by the federal prosecutor, said, OK, we could have a 30-day delay, but we're really OK. The trial was supposed to start today, and the judge said, I'm going to have a hearing instead. And he sharply rebuked Trump's lawyers for saying that the DA had done some kind of willful malpractice here.

The judge said there was no evidence of that, and he was moving forward to hold the trial on April 15. This judge has tried Trump's corporation. I have seen him many times. He is very calm, but, today, he got very testy for Judge Juan Merchan.

William Brangham:

And that trial, as we said, is going to start April 15.

Let's pivot now to this civil fraud ruling. Donald Trump is appealing that nearly half-a-billion dollar ruling against him on the allegations that he defrauded the state of New York by inflating his assets to get better bank loans.

Trump appealed and was asked to pay a whopping amount on a bond. That was now reduced by almost $300 million. Trump has now an extended grace period to get that money. What happens next in that particular case?

Andrea Bernstein:

So, well, in this case, the appeal will go through the appeals court, but this was really quite extraordinary, because normally what happens in New York is when you have such a judgment against, you can appeal it, but you have to put up a bond with the court that says, if it goes against me, I still can pay.

And Trump originally said, well, I don't want to pay $450 million. I will pay $100 million. The appeals court said, no way. And then he went back and he said, well, I cannot find a bank to guarantee this money. I can't find an insurance company to guarantee me this money, because I don't have enough liquid assets.

And after that is when the appeals court came back and said, OK, you don't have to pay $450 million. You can pay $174. They also are allowing Trump to continue to run his business, to continue to take out loans, and this will wind its way through the New York appeals process, which could take some time.

So, the attorney general said today, look, the $450 million judgment still stands. This is still a serious case, but we will have to wait some time for Trump to have to pay the full amount if he loses on appeal at New York's highest court, where he will certainly take this case.

William Brangham:

So any immediate seizure of assets, which some people were thinking might start today, is now…

Andrea Bernstein:

Oh, yes, that is off.

William Brangham:

… clearly going to get pushed off.

Andrea Bernstein:

Yes, that is off because it looks like he will be able to come up with the $175 million. He has 10 days to do it. He already had said he could come up with $100 million.

So it looks like that will happen. And then basically it puts everything on hold while the case wends its way through the court system, yet another legal delay spurred by Donald Trump, which is also what happened in the hush money case. That investigation began in 2018. It's now 2024.

Trump took it to the U.S. Supreme Court twice, arguing to them that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not be investigated while he was president. And just now, finally, on April 15 of this year, the judge is insistent that this case will go to trial.

William Brangham:

Andrea Bernstein, as always, thank you so much for helping us wade through all of this.

Andrea Bernstein:

Thank you.