NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — Donald Trump asked a New York appeals court on Monday to reverse his gag order and move his hush money criminal trial out of Manhattan in an eleventh-hour bid for a delay just a week before it is scheduled to start.

A judge in the state’s mid-level appeals court was to hold an emergency hearing Monday afternoon after the former president’s lawyers filed paperwork challenging Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan’s pretrial rulings.

Trump had pledged to appeal after Merchan ruled last month that the trial would begin April 15. His lawyers had pleaded to delay the trial at least until summer to give them more time to review late-arriving evidence from a prior federal investigation into the matter.

Merchan, who had already moved the trial from its original March 25 start date because of the evidence issue, said no further delays were warranted.

Trump’s lawyers filed their appeals Monday on two separate court dockets. One was styled as a lawsuit against Merchan, a legal mechanism allowing them to challenge his rulings.

In New York, judges can be sued over some judicial decisions under a state law known as Article 78. Trump has used the tactic before, including against the judge in his civil fraud case in an unsuccessful last-minute bid to delay that case last fall.

Trump’s hush money trial is the first of his four criminal indictments slated to go to trial and would be the first criminal trial ever of a former president.

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