Judge Delays Trump Trial Over Late Evidence Dump

Criminal case will be held up at least 30 days, though defense asked for 90
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 15, 2024 5:00 PM CDT
Judge Delays Trump Trial Over Late Evidence Dump
Donald Trump leaves Manhattan criminal court in New York last month.   (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

A judge on Friday delayed Donald Trump's hush-money criminal trial until at least mid-April after his lawyers said they need more time to sift through a profusion of evidence they only recently obtained from a previous federal investigation into the matter. Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to a 30-day postponement and scheduled a hearing for March 25 to address questions about the evidence dump. The trial had been slated to start on March 25. It is among four criminal indictments against Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee.

Trump's lawyers wanted a 90-day delay, which would have pushed the start of the trial into the early summer. Prosecutors said they were OK with a 30-day adjournment. Trump's lawyers said they have received tens of thousands of pages of evidence in the past two weeks from the US attorney's office in Manhattan, which investigated the matter while Trump was president. The evidence includes records about former Trump lawyer-turned-prosecution witness Michael Cohen that are "exculpatory and favorable to the defense," Trump's lawyers said. Prosecutors said most of the newly turned over material is "largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case," though some records are pertinent.

The case centers on allegations that Trump falsified his company's records to hide the true nature of payments to Cohen, who paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign to suppress her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels. His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses and not part of any cover-up, per the AP. Short trial delays because of issues with evidence aren't unusual, but any delay in a case involving Trump is significant, with trial dates in his other criminal cases up in the air and Election Day less than eight months away.

(More Donald Trump stories.)

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