For all the delays in Donald Trump’s criminal cases, it looked like his New York case was actually set to go to trial as scheduled, on March 25. But now, that one appears headed for some delay as well, though partially with the prosecution’s blessing.
The reason for this latest impending delay is so that the defense can review materials that were only recently produced by federal prosecutors. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan previously prosecuted Michael Cohen and investigated the hush money scheme at the center of the state case being prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Cohen is a central prosecution witness in the state case.
On Wednesday, according to a Thursday filing from Bragg’s office, the U.S. attorney’s office “produced approximately 31,000 pages of additional records and represented that there will be another production of documents by next week.” The filing added:
Based on our initial review of yesterday’s production, those records appear to contain materials related to the subject matter of this case, including materials that the People requested from the USAO [U.S. attorney’s office] more than a year ago and that the USAO previously declined to provide.
And though state prosecutors maintain that they’re ready for trial, they said in Thursday’s filing that they’re OK with “a brief adjournment of up to 30 days to permit sufficient time for defendant to review the USAO productions.” Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to charges that he falsified business records, previously requested a 90-day delay. The delay’s extent will be up to the judge presiding over the state prosecution, Juan Merchan.
State prosecutors laid blame with Trump in the filing. State prosecutors laid blame with Trump in the filing. They wrote that last year they asked federal prosecutors for “the full grand jury record” related to Cohen’s federal campaign finance convictions. In response, federal prosecutors produced “a subset” of what the DA’s office requested, which the office gave the former president in June. But then Trump waited until January to subpoena additional materials from federal prosecutors, and then he agreed to repeated extensions. Whoever’s fault it is — the feds’, Trump’s or some combination thereof — the result seemingly will be that the first criminal trial against a former U.S. president will be delayed. We’re once again in familiar territory in a Trump case, waiting to see how much delay this development will bring. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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