New York prosecutors announced on Thursday their willingness to accommodate a potential delay in the commencement of Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial in New York.
The district attorney’s office in Manhattan expressed openness to postponing the trial’s start by up to 30 days to allow Trump’s legal team sufficient time to review recently disclosed evidence.
Scheduled to commence on March 25 with jury selection, the trial faces the possibility of a delay sought by Trump’s attorneys, who have requested either a 90-day extension or the dismissal of charges.
Trump in Law Court (Credits: CNN)
They allege violations in the discovery process, citing newly disclosed evidence from the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which had previously investigated the core of Trump’s New York criminal case involving hush-money payments.
Furthermore, Trump’s defense seeks to postpone the trial until after the Supreme Court deliberates on Trump’s claims of presidential immunity, suggesting its potential relevance to aspects of the hush-money case. The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on April 25.
Judge Juan Manuel Merchan, presiding over the hush-money case, has yet to make a decision on either request.
Trump’s legal team has received approximately 84,000 pages of records from the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan since March 4, including a sizable batch of 31,000 pages provided on Wednesday, as detailed in a court filing.
Trump in Law Court (Credits: Law & Crime)
These records pertain to a federal inquiry that intersects with the hush-money issue and resulted in former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen facing charges in 2018.
Cohen was charged with campaign finance violations linked to the hush-money payments, tax evasion associated with his taxi industry investments, and perjury before Congress.
Having attributed his legal predicaments to Trump, Cohen pleaded guilty and served around a year in prison before transitioning to home confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He now stands as a significant prosecution witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s case. However, Trump and his legal team have consistently cast doubt on Cohen’s credibility, painting him as entirely unreliable.
