Donald Trump’s “hush money” criminal trial in Manhattan, which was scheduled to begin later this month, will be delayed until at least April 15, a judge ruled Friday.
The delay comes amid new disclosures by the former president’s lawyers in connection with Manhattan federal prosecutor Damian Williams’ prosecution of President Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness in the upcoming trial. The move comes after the court said it needed more time to review thousands of pages of evidence.
President Trump’s trial on a felony charge of concealing a $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels and silencing her story about an alleged affair was scheduled to begin on March 25.
Instead, that date was less than two weeks after jury selection was scheduled to begin, and why federal authorities waited until Wednesday to turn over 31,000 pages of evidence, and another 15,000 pages were turned over on Friday. It will be used for a public hearing to investigate the question of whether the .
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office blamed President Trump for the delay, saying the former president’s lawyers had stalled getting federal authorities to turn over the documents.
A “large portion” of the file is also “likely unrelated” to the case, the prosecutor’s office added in a court filing.
But the Trump campaign countered in its own filing that prosecutors were to blame for not turning over the documents, arguing that the delay in disclosure violated the Republican presidential candidate’s right to a fair trial. .
Any delay would be a major victory for President Trump, who has publicly said he wants to delay the criminal case until after the November election.
Mr. Trump was acquitted of 34 felonies stemming from his false statements in company records throughout 2017 that hush money payments to Mr. Cohen were actually paid for “legal services.” acknowledged.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to similar quid pro quo campaign finance crimes and was sentenced to three years in prison in Manhattan federal court.
