The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush money case agreed to delay the start of the trial until mid-April as he awaits information about last-minute disclosures that Trump’s attorneys have said were hindering their ability to prepare a defense in the case, the Associated Press reported.
In a March 15 letter to counsel, Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to delay the trial for 30 days and scheduled a March 25 hearing.
Trump’s attorneys on March 14 requested a 90-day delay, citing the tens of thousands of pages of evidence from a prior federal investigation turned over to the defense by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a March 14 filing that while it was prepared to go to trial as scheduled, it would not oppose a 30-day delay but would oppose the 90-day delay requested by the defense.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office argued that the Trump legal team caused the delay in discovery by waiting until January 18 to subpoena the SDNY’s office for the full case file.
The trial was scheduled to begin last Monday. However, with Judge Merchan’s delay, the trial would start no sooner than April 15.
In their March 14 filing, Trump’s lawyers also requested that the judge dismiss the case entirely, claiming that the last-minute barrage of disclosures violated the rules on sharing evidence in discovery and amounted to prosecutorial misconduct.
Trump’s attorneys also asked that the trial be delayed until after the US Supreme Court rules on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, arguing that the high court’s ruling would have a bearing on the hush money case.
In his letter, Judge Merchan told the prosecution and defense that he wanted to determine who was “at fault for the late production of the documents” and whether either side was hurt by it or if sanctions were warranted.
Merchan also requested all communication between the district attorney’s office and the SDNY.
