Lawyers for Donald J. Trump have spent the early part of this week seeking to stave off the former president’s trial on charges that he covered up a sex scandal.
They tried again Wednesday, filing a civil action in an appeals court against the judge in the case, records show. Although the filing is sealed, three people with knowledge of the matter said that it challenged a wide variety of issues relating to the trial, which is scheduled to start on Monday.
The filing underscored Mr. Trump’s increasing desperation — and scattershot approach — to delaying the trial. Stalling is one of the former president’s favorite legal strategies, not just in the Manhattan case, but in all of his legal entanglements.
The papers include a request that the appeals court pause the case while it considers whether to oust the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, the people said. Mr. Trump’s lawyers argue that Justice Merchan has a conflict of interest, citing his daughter’s work as a Democratic political consultant.
Ethics experts have said that Justice Merchan does not need to step aside and the judge has previously declined to recuse himself, noting that a judicial ethics panel concluded last year that he had no real conflict. The Trump team recently asked Justice Merchan again to step aside, and the judge is expected to give his answer this week.
In the action against the judge on Wednesday, two of the people said, Mr. Trump’s lawyers also asked the appeals court to find that their client, as a former president, is immune from prosecution. Justice Merchan has rejected that argument.
Mr. Trump’s so-called Article 78 action — a special type of appeal that comes in the form of a lawsuit and is used to challenge New York State government agencies and judges — could be heard by a single appeals court judge as soon as Wednesday.
The Manhattan case was brought by the district attorney’s office. It would be the first trial Mr. Trump faces after four indictments, and the nation’s first trial of a former president.
Mr. Trump’s other efforts this week to delay the case have failed.
The former president’s more traditional appeal, a request to delay the trial while judges consider a defense request to move it outside Manhattan, was denied Monday.
In a separate Article 78 action filed against Justice Merchan that day, Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked the appeals court to delay the trial while it considered his request to throw out a gag order the judge imposed. The order prohibits Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and the judge’s family.
But the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, has argued that the gag order will protect the people involved from Mr. Trump’s heated rhetoric. And an appeals court judge on Tuesday declined to pause the case.
Mr. Bragg accused Mr. Trump of falsifying records to conceal a sex scandal involving the porn star Stormy Daniels. The criminal case is one of four facing Mr. Trump, who is once again the presumptive Republican nominee for president, and it might be the only one to make it to trial before Election Day this year.
