Prosecutors Request Delay Of Trump’s Hush Money Trial

In a surprise move on Thursday, prosecutors in New York asked a judge to push back former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial by up to 30 days in order to sort through a cache of potential new evidence.

The case, centering on payments made to silence accusations of extramarital affairs in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, had been set to go to trial on March 25 as the first of its kind for a former president.

Lawyers in the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a court filing that, although they are still prepared to begin trial on the scheduled date, they would prefer more time in light of the fact that the U.S. Attorney’s Office only recently released tens of thousands of pages of records in response to a subpoena from Trump’s legal team.

The Manhattan prosecutors said they think the bulk of the new records are irrelevant to their case. But they noted that more were expected next week, and more than 30,000 pages were released Wednesday.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office blamed Trump for maneuvering to delay the trial, arguing that his legal team was first given records last summer yet waited nine months to file their request for more.

Delay has been Trump’s go-to legal strategy over the past several months as he deals with charges in four other cases brought by state and federal authorities.

“The timing of the [U.S. Attorney’s Office’s] productions is a result solely of defendant’s delay despite the People’s diligence. Nonetheless, and although the People are prepared to proceed to trial on March 25, we do not oppose an adjournment in an abundance of caution and to ensure that defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials,” prosecutors said in their filing.

“We