A Court Date and Fiery Testimony

In back-to-back hearings today, there were big developments in two of Donald Trump’s criminal trials — one that qualified as a defeat for him, the other that could end up helping him enormously.

In the morning, a judge in New York formally picked a date in March for Trump’s trial on charges related to hush money payments he made to keep the news of a sexual liaison he had with a porn star from coming out during his 2016 presidential campaign.

In the afternoon, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who indicted Trump and several others on charges of tampering with that state’s election, tried to avert the collapse of her case when she delivered fiery testimony about a relationship she had with a deputy.

The twin moves — both of which oddly touched on the subject of sexual affairs — showed how volatile and unpredictable the cases against Trump have been and may continue to be. They took place during a week when one of Trump’s other criminal cases — in which he stands accused of illegally plotting to overturn the 2020 election — also had an inflection point, and when one of his civil cases is expected to end with a significant financial penalty.

It cannot be said frequently enough that the web of legal matters Trump has become ensnared in over the past year or so is so complex and tangled it almost defies comprehension. Events this week seemed to prove that point, handing the former president a legal loss and a potential win within hours of each other.

The setting of Trump’s trial date in New York, for instance, made it a reality that for the first time in American history a former president will face a criminal trial, starting on March 25. And the testimony by the district attorney, Fani Willis, came as a judge