Trump on Trial: the scramble before the storm

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With less than a week until Donald Trump becomes the first former US president to face a criminal trial, his attorneys are doing everything they can to delay it even longer – with very little to show for their efforts.

On Tuesday, a New York appeals court judge rejected a last-minute lawsuit from Trump’s team that sought to pause the criminal hush-money case from proceeding while his attorneys try to overturn a gag order from presiding judge Juan Merchan.

That ruling came just one day after a different appellate judge rejected a last-minute request from Trump’s lawyers to move his trial from Manhattan because of claims that he couldn’t get a fair jury pool in the city. Both judges took just hours to issue their orders, a sign of how thin were the arguments from Trump’s lawyers. Trump’s team also asked Merchan – for a second time – to recuse himself from the trial. Unsurprisingly, he once again declined.

This follows a longstanding pattern of Trump freaking out as major threats approach, and his team responding with frenetic energy. As Guardian US reporter Hugo Lowell relays from sources close to Trump, he tends to start obsessing over his legal problems in the week before they come to pass.

“Last summer, when Trump was charged by the Fulton county district attorney, Trump only started becoming anxious about his arraignment several days before he was due to travel to Atlanta and be booked at the Rice Street jail,” Lowell told me. “A day or two before he was due to fly to Georgia, the enormity of the moment finally hit him, and Trump railed against the case in frustration.”

As Trump’s team