Get on with it!

Manhattan DA says no additional delay needed in Trump hush money criminal trial

By Kara Scannell and Jeremy Herb

Manhattan prosecutors say fewer than 270 documents recently turned over to Donald Trump by federal authorities are new and relevant to the criminal case involving hush money payments and no further delay to the trial is warranted.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office also told the judge that no sanctions were warranted and placed the blame on the late disclosure of records from the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York on Trump’s lawyers.

Trump asked Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss the indictment and delay the trial for 90 days alleging prosecutors withheld information from them involving the federal prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer and a key witness for the state.

The trial was set to start on March 25, but the judge postponed it to until at least April 15 over the dispute.

Prosecutors said a small number of the 33,000 records produced on March 13, based on their ongoing review, are new, writing the batch “contains only limited materials relevant to the subject matter of this case and that have not been disclosed to the defendant: fewer than an estimated 270 documents, most of which are inculpatory and corroborative of existing evidence.”

They went on to say Trump’s allegations of misconduct are “wholly unfounded, and the circumstances here do not come close to warranting the extreme sanctions he has sought.”

Prosecutors say they took steps to obtain records from federal prosecutors “including by requesting and obtaining extensive evidence about Michael Cohen’s campaign finance convictions—all of which was then disclosed to defendant. Moreover, the belated nature of the recent USAO productions is entirely a result of defendant’s own inexplicable and strategic delay in identifying perceived deficiencies in the People’s disclosures and pursuing independent means to obtain that evidence.”

They argued the trial should not be delayed any further. The judge is holding a hearing on March 25 to discuss the matter.