N.Y. district attorney supports a 30-day delay in Donald Trump’s hush money trial

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a court filing Thursday that his office doesn’t oppose Donald Trump’s request to delay the hush money trial — only days before the former president was slated to face his first criminal trial while simultaneously running to return to the White House.

The filing said “although the People are prepared to proceed to trial on March 25, we do not oppose an adjournment in an abundance of caution and to ensure that defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials,” Bragg wrote.

Bragg said his office doesn’t oppose delaying the start of the trial for 30 days. The trial was scheduled to begin March 25.

If the trial is ultimately delayed, it will be yet another win for Trump whose strategy across the four criminal indictments he’s facing has been to push for delays.

Trump had requested a 90-day delay in the trial because the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan provided 73,000 pages of discovery has been provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office since March 4. Bragg said his office’s initial review of those documents “were largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case” except for 172 pages of witness statements.

The district attorney said that the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Wednesday had produced about 31,000 pages of “additional records” to both prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers and “indicated that an additional production would follow by next week.” This came after Trump issued a subpoena in mid-January for additional materials from federal prosecutors. 

“The timing of the USAO’s productions is a result solely of defendant’s delay despite the People’s diligence,” Bragg said. 

In mid-February, Judge Juan Merchan, who’s overseen the case, scheduled the trial to begin on March 25. He said he expected the trial would last about six weeks.

Merchan, who did not seem interested in defense requests for a delay during a scheduling hearing earlier this year, will need to rule on the requests by both sides to push back the trial day. He could rule for a delay of less than 30 days or more.

Trump’s attorneys said in a court filing last week that their defense of the former president will be that Trump “lacked the requisite intent to commit the conduct charged in the indictment.” Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential bid. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.