Trump hush money trial delayed until at least April, judge rules

Donald Trump’s hush money trial has been delayed until at least April, a judge has ruled.

At a hearing on Friday Justice Juan Merchan ruled the trial, which is being held over money paid to a porn star before the 2016 US election, will start no earlier than April.

His decision came after the former US president said the late disclosure of evidence was hurting his preparation for the trial.

Justice Merchan’s decision to delay the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president marks another victory for Trump, who has sought to delay many of his criminal cases as prepares to challenge Joe Biden in the 5 November US election.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the New York case to 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 (around £102,000) payment to Stormy Daniels for her silence about a sexual encounter she has said they had a decade earlier.

The case in New York state court in Manhattan, which had been due to start on 25 March, was the first of four criminal indictments brought against Trump last year.

While none of the other three cases have firm trial dates, the delay to the New York trial could complicate scheduling the others.

Justice Merchan did not announce a firm new trial date in the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.

Instead, the judge will hold a hearing on 25 March after which he will potentially set a trial date even further into the future.

The delay came after the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan, which had previously investigated Cohen’s payment to Daniels, this month disclosed more than 100,000 pages of documents related to Cohen in response to a subpoena from Trump’s defense team.

The former president’s team requested a 90-day delay, saying they required more time to review the documents.

Manhattan District Attorney Alan Bragg agreed to a 30-day delay, which Justice Juan Merchan ultimately agreed to.

Mr Bragg’s office said on Friday many of the documents turned over by federal prosecutors were not relevant, and thus were not part of a request it made to the US Attorney’s office last year.

But Trump’s lawyers accused Bragg of seeking to prevent them from obtaining potentially damaging information about Cohen, who is expected to be a key prosecution witness at the trial.

Justice Merchan asked lawyers for both sides to provide him with a “detailed timeline” of their efforts to get documents from federal prosecutors.

Merchan said: “The requested documents are necessary for the court to properly assess who, if anyone, is at fault for the late production of the documents.”

Additional reporting by Reuters.