Donald Trump wanted trial delays, and he’s getting them. Hush-money case is latest to be put off
NEW YORK — Delays in Donald Trump’s criminal cases raise the possibility that Americans will be deep into presidential election season before they know whether or not he has been convicted of any wrongdoing.
The former president’s election interference case in Washington DC has been put on hold until the Supreme Court decides his immunity claims. His secret documents trial in Florida is also likely to be postponed. And his election subversion trial in Georgia has not been scheduled.
Now his hush-money criminal trial in New York — once considered the most punctual of the four — is in limbo and postponed until at least mid-April. The problem: Last-minute evidence dumps from a 2018 federal investigation into the same issues.
After Trump’s lawyers complained, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said there would be a 30-day delay to ensure his defense team has enough time to review the material. Trump’s lawyers wanted a 90-day delay and also asked for the case to be dismissed.
Judge Juan Manuel Merchan scheduled a hearing for March 25 — the day jury selection was scheduled to begin — to resolve the late-emerging issues. Here’s what’s behind the disruption.
The case concerns an alleged scheme to prevent potentially damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Trump nearly a year ago of falsifying internal records kept by his company to conceal the nature of payments to his then-attorney Michael Cohen, who paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000. She said she had an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump. He denies it.
Trump’s company then reimbursed Cohen for an amount far greater than what he spent and recorded the payments as legal fees, prosecutors said. Over several months, Cohen said he was paid $420,000.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying company records. His lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal fees.
Trump’s lawyers say they are being inundated with evidence arriving too late: more than 100,000 pages of documents from a separate federal investigation into Cohen that concluded years ago. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign violations and other unrelated crimes and served about a year in prison.
Trump’s lawyers say they need time to review materials turned over by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, including bank records, witness statements and other evidence.
Trump’s lawyers blame Manhattan prosecutors for failing to pressure their federal counterparts to turn over the evidence sooner. The U.S. attorney’s office finally began producing documents on March 4, after Trump’s lawyers subpoenaed them in January.
A final batch of about 15,000 pages was expected to be turned on Friday, bringing the total to about 119,000 pages.
Trump’s lawyers say some of the documents are “exculpatory and beneficial to the defense.” Prosecutors claim that most of the material is “largely irrelevant.”
Exchanging evidence before a trial is routine.
Trump’s lawyers claim the Manhattan district attorney’s office tried to hide evidence as part of a “desperate effort” to gain an advantage at trial.
“The People should have collected all these documents long ago,” Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles wrote in the lawsuits. “Instead, they collected some materials but left others with federal authorities, hoping that President Trump would never get them.”
Bragg’s office argued that Trump’s lawyers caused the time crunch by waiting until Jan. 18 to subpoena the U.S. attorney’s office for any documents they want.
In a court filing made public Thursday, the district attorney’s office said it requested the entire file last year, but the U.S. attorney’s office turned over only a portion of the files. Trump’s lawyers received that material last June and had ample time to seek additional evidence from the federal investigation, the district attorney’s office said.
On Friday, the district attorney’s office clarified that it had not requested the full file from the U.S. attorney’s office because much of what was in it was irrelevant.
The U.S. attorney’s office declined comment.
Federal prosecutors have been investigating Cohen over a variety of concerns, including tax issues related to a taxi company he operated and questions about whether he tried to illegally profit from his connections to Trump.
However, the case eventually narrowed, and in 2018 Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations related to the payment to Daniels, making false statements on a bank loan application and evading taxes. A few months later, he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.
In their case against Cohen, federal prosecutors said the hush money payment was made to benefit Trump and occurred with his knowledge, but they did not accuse Trump of directly committing a crime.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice and guidance to federal agencies, has maintained that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Federal prosecutors did not resume their investigation after Trump left the White House.
Merchan will hold a hearing on March 25 to determine whether anyone deserves to be punished for the delays in turning over documents to Trump’s legal team. Trump’s lawyers have asked for the case to be dismissed.
Trump’s lawyers have also asked the judge to delay the trial until the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s claims of presidential immunity. His lawyers say a ruling in Trump’s favor could wipe out some evidence in the hush money case, such as social media posts he made while he was president in 2018.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office says Trump’s immunity claims have little impact on his hush-money case and do not warrant a delay.
“We want a delay,” Trump announced as he attended a hearing in the hush money case on February 15. So far he’s getting his way.
Neither of Trump’s two federal prosecutions — in Florida and Washington, D.C. — are guaranteed to go to trial this year, in part because of his efforts to delay the proceedings. His election interference trial in Georgia has not been scheduled. That case was shaken up on Friday by a judge’s ruling, prompting special prosecutor Nathan Wade to step aside.
Trump’s trial in Florida, where he is accused of illegally withholding classified documents, was set for May 20. But it had been clear for months that that date would not hold, as the judge weighed multiple objections to the charges and various evidentiary disputes.
U.S. District Judge Alieen Cannon has given no indication as to when she plans to set a trial date.
“We are convinced that a process that takes place before the elections is a mistake and should not take place,” Blanche told Cannon. “The easy solution is to start this process after the election.”
Trump’s case in Washington, D.C., involving allegations that he planned to overturn the 2020 election, was seen as the most likely case to go to trial first — but that is no longer the case.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan had scheduled the trial for March 4, but that was disrupted by an appeal from Trump claiming he was immune from prosecution for official actions in the White House.
The judge stayed the case while the appeal was before the courts. That decision created significant uncertainty about whether there will be enough time for a trial before the election — assuming the Supreme Court allows the prosecution.
The longer Trump’s trials are delayed, the more he will argue that it is impractical and unfair to lock him in court instead of leaving him to his campaign. But there are also practical advantages.
If Trump becomes president, he could order the Justice Department to drop the federal cases or try to pardon himself. But he would not be able to pardon himself in the hush money or Georgia cases because they involve state charges. Presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes.
In the meantime, as there is a rush to try Trump before Election Day — now eight months away — the judge in the hush money case said he can rest assured he will not be forced to choose between attending overlapping trials.
“He will not be involved in more than one criminal case at a time,” Merchan said.
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Tucker reported from Fort Pierce, Florida.