Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told a judge Thursday that his office is willing to delay the upcoming trial of former President Donald Trump by a month, a stunning turn of events just 11 days before proceedings in the “hush money” case were set to begin. The trial is currently scheduled to start March 25.
Attorneys for Trump in January subpoenaed the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which on March 4 turned over more than 73,000 pages of documents. The office turned over more documents Wednesday, according to Bragg’s filing.
“Yesterday, the USAO produced approximately 31,000 pages of additional records and represented that there will be another production of documents by next week,” wrote Bragg, who said the documents included material his office requested more than a year ago. “Based on our initial review of yesterday’s production, those records appear to contain materials related to the subject matter of this case.”
Bragg wrote that the U.S. Attorney “previously declined to provide” the material.
Trump’s lawyers asked for a 90 day delay as a result, or dismissal of the case.
“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,” Bragg wrote. “We therefore notify the Court that we do not oppose a brief adjournment not to exceed 30 days.”
An attorney for Trump did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Trump has entered a not guilty plea in the case, in which he’s charged with 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. The allegations related to reimbursements to his former attorney Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to an adult film star.
In a March 8 filing that was made public Thursday, Trump’s lawyers accused Bragg’s office of attempting to thwart their efforts to get material from the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney.
Trump’s attorneys wrote the documents that were ultimately turned over related to, among other things, bank records and related emails concerning Cohen, and documents seized in 2018 from “two Apple iPhones and three email accounts belonging to Mr. Cohen.”
