The Manhattan district attorney’s office said Thursday a slew of new documents turned over by federal prosecutors to former President Donald Trump do not warrant a further delay of a trial in his hush money case.
Lawyers for Mr. Trump asked for a three-month delay after they unexpectedly received more than 100,000 pages of documents from a previous federal investigation of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Judge Juan Merchan agreed to push the original start date of the case from March 25 to no earlier than April 15.
D.A. Alvin Bragg’s office argued in a court filing Thursday that the delay given by Judge Merchan is a “more than reasonable amount of time” for Mr. Trump’s team to review the documents, and that no further delay is needed.
Prosecutors said that fewer than 270 documents from the investigation into Mr. Cohen contain “only limited materials relevant to the subject matter of this case.”
“The overwhelming majority of the production is entirely immaterial, duplicative or substantially duplicative of previously disclosed materials, or cumulative of evidence concerning Michael Cohen’s unrelated federal convictions that defendant has been on notice about for months,” the filing says.
Trump lawyers have accused the Manhattan district attorney’s office of withholding the evidence and, along with requesting a 90-day delay, also asked for the case to be dismissed. The prosecutor’s office said Mr. Trump’s team was “leveling wild and untrue allegations of misconduct and malfeasance,” and asked the judge to dismiss Mr. Trump’s delay request.
Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments Mr. Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. His lawyers have said the payments to Mr. Cohen were actual legal expenses and not part of a cover-up.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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