Donald Trump wanted delays in trials, and he is getting them. Hush-Money case is latest to be postponed

NEW YORK — Delays in Donald Trump's criminal cases are raising the possibility that Americans will be thrust into the presidential election season before knowing whether or not he was convicted of wrongdoing.

The former president's Washington, D.C., election interference case is on hold until the Supreme Court rules on his immunity claims. His trial on classified documents charges in Florida will also likely be postponed. And his trial for election subversion in Georgia has not been scheduled.

Today, his secret criminal trial in New York, once considered the most timely of the four, is in limbo, pushed back until at least mid-April. The problem: late-breaking evidence from a 2018 federal investigation into the same issues.

After Trump's lawyers complained, the Manhattan district attorney's office said it would be open to a 30-day delay to ensure his defense team had enough time to review the documents. Trump's lawyers were seeking a 90-day delay and also requested that the case be dismissed.

Judge Juan Manuel Merchan scheduled a hearing for March 25, the day jury selection was supposed to begin ironing out last-minute issues. Here's a look at what's behind this disruption.

The case involves an alleged scheme to prevent potentially damaging stories about his personal life from being made 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 hide the nature of payments made to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen, who had paid $130,000 to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She said she had an extramarital sexual relationship with Trump. He denies it.

Trump's company then reimbursed Cohen for an amount far more than he spent and recorded the payments as legal fees, prosecutors said. Over several months, Cohen reported receiving $420,000.

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 counts of falsifying business records. His lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal fees.

Trump's lawyers say they are inundated with late-arriving evidence, 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 documents turned over by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, which include bank statements, witness statements and other evidence.

Trump's lawyers blame Manhattan prosecutors for failing to pressure their federal counterparts to turn over evidence sooner. The U.S. attorneys' 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 delivered Friday, bringing the total to about 119,000 pages.

Trump's lawyers say some records are exculpatory and favorable to the defense. Prosecutors say much of the material is largely irrelevant. »

The exchange of evidence before a trial is a common practice.

Trump's lawyers say the Manhattan district attorney's office was trying to hide evidence in a desperate effort to gain an advantage at trial.

The People should have collected all of these documents long ago,” Trump's lawyers, Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles, wrote in court papers. “Instead, they collected some documents but left others for authorities federal, in the hope that President Trump would never get them. .

Braggs' office argued that Trump's lawyers were to blame for running out of time by waiting until Jan. 18 to subpoena the U.S. attorney's office for all the documents he wanted.

In a court filing released Thursday, the prosecutor's office said it requested the full file last year, but the U.S. attorneys' office turned over only a subset of documents. Trump's lawyers received those documents last June and have had ample time to seek additional evidence in the federal investigation, the prosecutor'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 it contained was irrelevant.

The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment.

Federal prosecutors have been investigating Cohen on a variety of issues, including tax matters related to a taxi business he operated, and questions about whether he tried to illegally profit from his dealings with 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 tax evasion. A few months later, he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.

In their case against Cohen, federal prosecutors said the secret payment was made for Trump's benefit 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 argued that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Federal prosecutors did not restart their investigation once Trump left the White House.

Merchan will hold a hearing on March 25 to determine whether anyone deserves to be penalized for delays in turning over documents to Trump's legal team. Trump's lawyers requested that the case be dismissed.

Trump's lawyers also asked the judge to delay the trial until the Supreme Court rules on Trump's presidential immunity claims. His lawyers say a ruling in Trump's favor could overturn some evidence in the secrecy case, such as social media posts he made while 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 delays, Trump proclaimed as he headed into a Feb. 15 hearing in the secrecy case. So far he gets what he wants.

Neither of Trump's two federal lawsuits in Florida and Washington, D.C. are guaranteed to go to trial this year, in part because of his efforts to block the proceedings. His trial for election interference in Georgia has not been scheduled. That case was rocked Friday by a judge's decision urging special prosecutor Nathan Wade to step down.

Trump's trial in Florida, where he is accused of illegally possessing 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 challenges to the indictment and various evidentiary disputes.

U.S. District Judge Alieen Cannon has given no indication of when she plans to set a trial date.

We strongly believe that a trial that takes place before the election is wrong and should not take place, Blanche told Cannon. The easy solution is to start this trial after the elections.

The Trump case in Washington, D.C., involving allegations that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election, was considered most likely 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 upended by an appeal from Trump saying he was immune from prosecution for official actions taken at the White House.

The judge stayed the case while the appeal was heard in court. This decision created great uncertainty over whether there would be sufficient time for a trial before the election, assuming the High Court allows the proceedings to proceed.

The longer Trump's trials are postponed, the more he will argue that it is impractical and unfair to put him in a courtroom instead of letting him campaign. But there are also practical advantages.

If Trump becomes president, he could order the Justice Department to drop federal charges or attempt a pardon. But he could not pardon himself in the hush-hush or Georgia cases because they involve charges against the state. Presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes.

Meanwhile, if there is a rush to try Trump before Election Day, eight months from now, the judge overseeing the financial secrecy case said he can rest assured he won't be forced to choose between attend overlapping trials.

He will not participate in more than one criminal trial at the same time,” Merchan said.

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Tucker reported from Fort Pierce, Florida.

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