Donald Trump is expected to seek further delays to his Stormy Daniels hush money trial when more documents are released to his lawyers next week.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has already agreed to delay the trial by a month after federal prosecutors disclosed more than 100,000 pages of documents to Trump’s lawyers this month.
Trump’s Daniels trial was set to begin March 25. The former president is accused of making hush-money payments to adult film star Stephanie Clifford, better known by the stage name Stormy Daniels, during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Paul Golden, a partner at New York law firm Coffey Modica, told Newsweek that additional documents will be released next week, but the exact quantity is still not known.
All of the documents are coming from the U.S Attorney’s Office, the prosecution section of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and relate to Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has agreed to testify against Trump in the Stormy Daniels case.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office has indicated it will produce yet another set of documents sometime during the week of March 18th,” Golden said.
“At this point it is unknown how many pages of records there will be in that set. It is also unknown how many of these new pages are directly relevant to the underlying criminal case.”
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump’s attorney on Sunday.
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Trump is facing up to 34 felony charges regarding the alleged falsification of business records and concealing hush-money payments to Daniels during his first presidential campaign. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Golden noted that on March 4, approximately 73,000 pages of records from the U.S. Attorney’s Office were provided to Trump as a response to a subpoena.
“Although this may seem to be a large of amount of new material Trump’s attorneys would need to review to be ready for trial, the DA’s position was that of these pages, only about 172 pages of witness statements were relevant to the underlying case, and that Trump’s attorneys would have more than enough time to review them before the trial.”
In addition to these 73,000 pages of records, the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Monday, March 11, produced another set of records—around 31,000 pages.
Bragg indicated that because of the “distinctive circumstances,” his office would consent to an adjournment of “up to 30 days.”
“The judge now has several choices, including adjourning the trial date by 30 days, as the DA requests, or by 90 days, as Trump is seeking,” Golden said.
However, Trump’s lawyers will almost certainly seek a longer adjournment once the next tranche of documents are released next week.
Bragg has accused Trump’s attorneys of stalling their last request for DOJ documents so that the Daniels trial will be delayed.
However, Bragg’s office conceded on Thursday that it is willing to delay the start of the Trump trial by 30 days so that the former president’s lawyers can read over newly disclosed documents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“We note that the timing of the current production of additional materials from the USAO (U.S Attorney’s Office) is a function of [the] defendant’s own delay,” the DA’s office stated in a court filing.
“Defendant waited until January 18, 2024, to subpoena additional materials from the USAO and then consented to repeated extensions of the deadline for the USAO’s determination.”
As Trump’s delay request is not opposed by Bragg’s office, it will likely be granted by the judge in the Daniels case, Juan Merchan. However, he could agree to delay the case by 90 days, as Trump has requested.
DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith has repeatedly accused Trump of trying to delay his criminal trials until after the presidential election. If elected president, Trump can apply to the U.S. Supreme Court to have all his criminal trials delayed until after he leaves office.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office records released so far are all related to federal prosecutors’ 2018 investigations of the alleged hush-money payments at the center of Trump’s case, which eventually brought charges against the ex-president’s former attorney and fixer, Cohen.
Trump’s lawyers are hoping to use the records to discredit Cohen’s upcoming testimony in the Daniels trial.
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