Read the latest developments in Trump’s criminal trial.
One week before Donald J. Trump is set to face a criminal trial in Manhattan, an appeals court judge on Monday rejected his effort to pause the case and move it to a different location.
The judge, Lizbeth Gonzalez, issued the decision Monday afternoon after hearing arguments from Mr. Trump’s lawyers and lawyers from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has accused the former president of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal.
For weeks, Mr. Trump has sought to delay the trial, the first prosecution of a former U.S. president, and possibly the only one of Mr. Trump’s four criminal cases to make it to trial this year.
Mr. Trump’s attempt to move the case out of Manhattan was not the only delay strategy he deployed on Monday. In a separate proceeding, he indicated that he planned to file an unusual type of lawsuit against the judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan.
Two people with knowledge of the matter said that Mr. Trump’s lawyers on Monday had planned to file the action calling on the appeals court to overturn a gag order that Justice Merchan recently imposed on the former president. The order prevents Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and the judge’s own family.
Court records showed on Monday that Mr. Trump had begun the process of filing the action against Justice Merchan, though the papers were not immediately made public.
An online court docket where Mr. Trump is expected to file the so-called Article 78 action — a special proceeding that comes in the form of a lawsuit and can be used to challenge New York State government agencies and judges — showed that the related paperwork was sealed.
Mr. Trump’s unorthodox move, essentially an appeal in the form of a suit, is unlikely to succeed, particularly so close to trial.
His other tactic, a more traditional motion for a change of venue, fell flat with Judge Gonzalez on Monday. One of the former president’s lawyers, Emil Bove, said that Manhattan jurors were uniquely ill-suited to hear the case, having been subjected to an unusual amount of negative coverage about his client.
“In terms of prejudicial pretrial publicity in this county, this case stands alone,” Mr. Bove said. He noted that an online survey conducted by Mr. Trump’s team had found that 61 percent of Manhattan residents believed the former president was guilty.
But a lawyer for the district attorney’s office, Steven Wu, furiously rebutted those arguments, noting that the survey also showed that 70 percent of Manhattan residents believed they could set aside their biases and be fair and impartial, a higher percentage than in neighboring counties.
“That is the relevant question,” Mr. Wu said.
About 45 minutes after the hearing ended, Justice Gonzalez sided with Mr. Wu and the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg.
The appeals court might act fast on Mr. Trump’s action against Justice Merchan as well. A single appeals court judge will most likely issue a preliminary ruling on Tuesday, possibly setting up a full five-judge panel to consider Mr. Trump’s request in the days that follow.
The former president, who is again the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is aiming to push all four of his criminal cases past Election Day. If he wins the race, the cases are likely to grind to a halt.
In the Manhattan case, Mr. Bragg charged the former president with 34 felonies stemming from a hush-money deal with a porn star. Mr. Trump, prosecutors say, allowed his company to falsify its own business records to conceal the payment.
The latest efforts to stop the Manhattan case come as Mr. Trump is separately calling on Justice Merchan to recuse himself from the case.
Mr. Trump and his lawyers argue that the judge has a conflict of interest, citing his daughter’s position at a Democratic consulting firm that worked for President Biden’s campaign in 2020.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly assailed Justice Merchan’s daughter on social media and posted articles with her picture, leading the judge to expand the gag order to bar Mr. Trump from attacking her or other members of his family.
The judge could rule on the recusal request in the coming days. He rejected Mr. Trump’s first recusal request, filed last year, and is likely to do the same this time.
In a response to Mr. Trump’s most recent request, prosecutors for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the charges against Mr. Trump, wrote that Mr. Trump “predominantly repeats the same arguments that he made in his first recusal motion more than 10 months ago and that this court previously considered and rejected.”
The prosecutors added that the recusal request was based on “a daisy chain of innuendos.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg declined to comment on the Monday appeal.
Legal actions against judges are unusual, but this is not Mr. Trump’s first attempt to use that tactic to try to delay a trial. Last year, he sued the New York judge presiding over his civil fraud trial — an effort the appeals court ultimately rejected.
Kate Christobek contributed reporting.