A judge on Friday postponed former President Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial for 30 days, giving defense attorneys time to consider a trove of evidence recently obtained in previous federal investigations into the matter.
Judge Juan Melchan agreed to a 30-day delay and scheduled a hearing for March 25 to answer questions about the Justice Department’s evidence dump.
The Justice Department notified Trump’s legal team and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on Friday that it plans to produce 15,000 records of potential evidence. The Justice Department investigated hush-money payments during Trump’s presidency.
The U.S. Department of Justice said much of the material was unrelated to the state case against Trump. Federal prosecutors have already turned over at least 104,000 pages of records, 74,000 of which were originally sent to Mr. Bragg’s office, but not his office. . Trump’s lawyer.
Mr. Bragg’s office later turned over the 74,000 pages to the defense.
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Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg (Barry Williams, NY Daily News, via Getty Images)
The records from federal prosecutors relate to a federal investigation that touched on hush money issues and led to a prison sentence for Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen.
Mr. Bragg previously said he was not opposed to delaying the start of the trial for up to 30 days to give Mr. Trump’s legal team time to consider recently submitted evidence.
Trump’s lawyers had asked for a 90-day delay or the charges be dropped, citing violations of the discovery process in which both sides exchange evidence. The defense argued that a 30-day adjournment was “insufficient” and asked Marchan to schedule a discovery hearing.
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New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg is investigating former President Donald Trump for allegedly paying hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. (Shane Bevell/NCAA Photo via Getty Images/Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from allegations that he paid hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The hush money lawsuit is against Cohen, who paid Daniels $130,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign to suppress her claims that she had an extramarital affair with Trump years earlier. The focus is on allegations that Trump falsified company records to hide the true nature of his payments.
President Trump has denied having sexual contact with Daniels.
Federal prosecutors indicted Cohen in 2018 on campaign finance violations related to hush-money payments, tax evasion related to investments in the taxi industry, and lying to Congress.
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Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued that evidence from the federal investigation is critical to defending Mr. Trump in the New York case that Mr. Bragg is prosecuting.
Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
