"Absolutely shocking": Experts worry "astonishing" delay could derail Trump's NY trial entirely

A New York judge on Friday delayed the start of Donald Trump's New York hush-money trial by 30 days to at least mid-April to allow the former president's legal team to parse through a massive batch of newly disclosed evidence, The Associated Press reports.

Judge Juan Merchan agreed to the delay just under two weeks before its scheduled start date and a day after the prosecutors who brought the case against Trump voiced support in a court notice for a 30-day delay should the judge grant one. Merchan also scheduled a hearing to discuss questions about federal prosecutors' recent evidence dump on March 25, the previously scheduled start date for the trial. 

The Manhattan district attorney's office, which accuses Trump of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment during his 2016 presidential campaign, was initially expected to oppose the Trump team's recent request for a delay in the trial. But in the Thursday court filing, District Attorney Alvin Bragg agreed with a shorter postponement “out of an abundance of caution and to ensure that defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials," which amount to tens of thousands of pages.

His office has repeatedly requested those records from federal prosecutors, who investigated the hush-money payments at the center of the case years prior, for more than a year and had only received a portion of the material before now, according to The New York Times.

Prosecutors' evidence dump is "astonishing" and "absolutely shocking," Bennett Gershman, a law professor at Pace University and former New York prosecutor, told Salon.

"The public interest in a fair and timely criminal trial has been undermined by this development which may not only delay the most historic criminal trial in American history but even worse, to scuttle it entirely," he said ahead of Merchan's Friday decision.

The evidence contains records about ex-Trump lawyer and current prosecution witness Michael Cohen that are “exculpatory and favorable to the defense,” attorneys for the former president told the AP. Prosecutors said most of the newly disclosed evidence is “largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case,” but some are pertinent.  

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York started producing records for the case 10 days ago, turning over about 73,000 pages of files. They provided about 31,000 additional documents on Wednesday and said they would send more next week, according to Bragg's office.

Trump is "at least partially responsible" for the federal prosecutors' delay, Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor, told Salon.

Trump only subpoenaed the records from the U.S. attorney's office in January after receiving the first subset of materials in early June last year, Bragg noted in the filing. Upon receipt of the latest batch, the former president requested the trial be delayed 90 days.

The district attorney's support of a postponement, despite Trump's common tactic to stall his cases by making such requests, raised the likelihood of Merchan granting it. Bragg, however, also made sure to emphasize in Thursday's notice Trump's fault in consenting "to repeated extensions of the deadline" for federal prosecutors. 

It remains unclear why the Southern District did not turn over the records to Bragg earlier, The New York Times reported. 

"What on god’s green earth were the Southern District federal prosecutors thinking in turning this over so late?" former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann wrote on X. "If I’m the Manhattan DA, himself a former Southern District prosecutor, I’m LIVID."

https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1768358753001152775  

Unless federal prosecutors have a "legitimate and explainable reason" for doing so, their delay "is a terrible commentary on the conduct of the law enforcement community in New York," Gershman added, arguing it prompts "serious questions" about what, if any, potential tensions, conflicts or biases between the prosecuting offices could have provoked this response. 

While Brookings senior fellow and CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen agreed federal prosecutors' behavior does seem "a bit dubious," he said on X Thursday that a short trial postponement to "deal with" these kinds of document surges is "not unusual."

"DANY is not ASKING for a continuance, they're saying they won't object if the judge decides to order one of up to 30 days in response to Trump's demand for even more time," Eisen wrote, explaining that Bragg is trying to "cabin the amount of delay and keep this trial moving."

Any delay "longer than 30 days would certainly be unnecessary & contrary to the interest of judgment," he later concluded.

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Bragg's case against the former president revolves around a $130,000 hush-money payment Cohen, made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. 

When Trump repaid Cohen, his family business falsely characterized the payments as "legal expenses" in internal records, prosecutors say, furthering a cover-up that hid potentially damaging information of an alleged sexual encounter between Trump and Daniels from voters ahead of the election. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in 2018 after federal prosecutors in Manhattan caught wind of the arrangement and threatened to indict him. 

Those prosecutors investigated Trump's role in the hush-money deal but ultimately chose not to bring charges against him. They noted in court filings, however, that Trump did instruct Cohen to offer Daniels the hush money.

Gillers and Syracuse University College of Law professor Gregory Germain expect Trump will make further attempts to delay the trial going forward. It's unclear exactly what these efforts will look like or how accommodating the court will be, Gillers explained, but it's incredibly likely Trump will push to "avoid a trial before the election."

Merchan, who ultimately has the authority to determine whether to delay the trial further, has routinely opted to keep the case moving along.

"The unknown is whether Bragg will aggressively push forward with a pre-election trial. Bragg took years before bringing the charges (and changing prosecutors), and has always seemed reticent about the case," Germain added, noting this is Bragg's "most high profile" prosecution and a challenge because of the uncertainty around Trump's intent for covering up the payments and its reliance on a complex campaign finance law.  

Because he may be in the "uncomfortable position" of bringing the case without "being confident" of the outcome, "Bragg might get cold feet as well, and not fight that hard for a pre-election trial," Germain explained. "We'll just have to see."