Prosecutors Say Trump’s New York Criminal Trial Could Be Delayed

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s criminal trial due to start later this month could be postponed after the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a court filing that it would accept a 30-day delay in order to review records from federal prosecutors.

Any delay in the trial, scheduled to begin March 25, would come as a victory for Trump, who has been fighting vigorously to postpone trials in all four of his criminal cases. The Manhattan case, over a hush money payment Trump allegedly orchestrated during the 2016 election to silence a porn star who claimed a sexual encounter with him, is set to be the first of the cases to go to trial.

In the court filing, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said Trump had requested a delay of 90 days. Bragg said his office wouldn’t oppose a delay of up to 30 days. Any postponement would require the approval of the judge overseeing the case, Justice Juan Merchan.

The requests to postpone the case are a result of the recent production of thousands of pages of documents by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, according to the filing by Bragg’s office.

The federal prosecutors investigated the hush money payment in 2018 and ultimately charged Michael Cohen, Trump’s former “fixer,” who 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 witness in the upcoming trial.

Since March 4, Bragg’s office said, the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office has provided approximately 73,000 pages of documents in response to Trump’s January subpoena to federal prosecutors. And on Wednesday, according to Bragg’s filing, the office produced approximately 31,000 pages of documents and said it expected to turn over more next week.

“Based on our initial review of yesterday's production, those records appear to contain materials related to the subject matter of this case,” Bragg’s prosecutors wrote, including materials the district attorney’s office said it requested more than a year ago and that federal prosecutors “declined to provide.”