Judge Orders Delay In Trump’s New York Trial

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan will be delayed by at least three weeks after the judge overseeing the matter agreed Friday that the former president and the district attorney’s office need additional time to review records from federal prosecutors that are related to the case.

The postponement of the trial, which was scheduled to begin March 25, is a welcome development for Trump, who has pushed hard to delay all four of his criminal cases. Even with the delay, the Manhattan case, which concerns a hush money payment Trump allegedly orchestrated during the 2016 election to silence a porn star who claimed she had a sexual encounter with him, will likely remain the first to proceed to trial.

The change in trial date comes after both Trump and prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office asked Justice Juan Merchan for more time to review thousands of pages of documents that are in the process of being turned over by the federal prosecutors who previously investigated the hush money case.

In a court filing, Trump requested that the case be dismissed outright or postponed by at least 90 days, and accused Bragg’s office of failing to turn over reams of documents that could potentially help the former president’s case.

In his own filing, Bragg primarily blamed Trump for the timing of the document dump, saying federal prosecutors had only recently turned over documents in response to a subpoena that Trump served in January. He also faulted the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, saying that in recent weeks it produced materials the district attorney’s office had requested more than a year ago and that federal prosecutors at that time “declined to provide.”

Bragg said there was no basis to dismiss the case, but that he wouldn’t oppose a trial delay of up to 30 days to allow Trump to review the documents.

In his ruling Friday, Merchan said he would hold a hearing on March 25 over the documents. He also ordered both Trump and the district attorney’s office to produce “a detailed timeline of the events surrounding the requests and ultimate production of documents” by federal prosecutors.

The U.S. attorney’s office has material that is relevant to the case because its prosecutors investigated the hush money payment in 2018 and ultimately charged Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer. Cohen made the payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and was subsequently reimbursed by Trump. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in connection with the payment, and he is expected to be a key witness for the prosecution in Trump’s upcoming trial.

Trump has denied any sexual encounter with Daniels.

Since March 4, Bragg’s office said, the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office has provided about 73,000 pages of documents in response to Trump’s January subpoena. And on Wednesday, according to Bragg’s filing, federal prosecutors produced an additional 31,000 pages of documents. On Friday, in a separate filing, Bragg’s office said the U.S. attorney’s office would turn over the remainder of the documents by the end of the day.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the delay in the Manhattan trial may affect any of Trump’s other criminal cases. His federal case in Florida, on charges of mishandling classified documents, is scheduled to go to trial on May 20, but it is almost certain to be postponed until at least the summer — or possibly after the November election.

In his Friday decision, Merchan wrote that his previous “directive that the parties, including the Defendant, not engage or otherwise enter into any commitment pending completion of this trial remains in effect.”