Manhattan prosecutors said Thursday they are willing to delay Donald Trump’s trial on hush-money charges for up to 30 days so they can review newly obtained records from federal authorities.
The request could delay proceedings, which were due to begin on March 25 with jury selection in New York, the first of four criminal indictments against the former US president to go to trial. D.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told the court they were open to delays because they had received about 31,000 pages of records from federal prosecutors and expected more next week.
“Based on our preliminary review of yesterday’s production, the records appear to contain information relevant to the subject matter of this case, including information requested by the People [US attorney’s office (USAO)] Civil Aviation Organization previously refused to provide it more than a year ago,” prosecutors wrote.
Trump’s lawyers have asked for a 90-day delay or for the charges against him to be dropped, accusing him of violating discovery procedures that allow the defense and prosecutors to share evidence with each other. Prosecutors said the delay was unnecessary.
The New York case centers on allegations that Trump directed his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to target her before the 2016 election. She remained silent about what she said was a sexual encounter ten years ago and then mistakenly recorded his sexual encounters. Reimburse Cohen for legal fees.
Trump, who recently won enough delegates to clinch the Republican presidential nomination and is expected to face Joe Biden in November, has denied the meeting with Daniels and pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. Plea guilty.
Last month, prosecutors said they planned to present evidence of Trump’s 2018 “pressure campaign” to ensure that Cohen would not cooperate with the federal investigation into Daniels’ payments. Cohen pleaded guilty that year to violating campaign finance laws.
Bragg’s office noted in the motion that “the current time it takes for USAO to produce additional materials is the result of defendants’ own delays.”
“[D]Defendants waited until January 18, 2024, to subpoena additional materials from USAO and then agreed to multiple extensions of the deadline for USAO to make a decision,” the office wrote.
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Trump and 18 co-defendants also face charges in Georgia for allegedly interfering with the state’s 2020 election results to prevent Biden from winning the electoral vote.
At the federal level, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith has indicted him on charges of conspiring to prevent Biden from winning the White House. He also separately accused Trump of taking classified government documents with him after he became president and conspiring to keep them from falling into the hands of authorities sent to retrieve them.
Trump is the first former president to face criminal charges, and a conviction could upend a bitter battle with Biden, who has struggled with poor approval ratings for much of his presidency. However, he faces delays in three criminal cases outside New York as judges weigh pretrial motions and appeals, and it’s unclear whether any will be resolved before the Nov. 5 election.
