Federal prosecutors have started to produce tens of thousands of documents in response to a subpoena from Donald Trump in the New York state hush money case, threatening to delay the start of that trial by weeks.
The case is set to go to trial March 25, but after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York began to provide reams of previously undisclosed documents, the ultimate start date of the trial may be up in the air.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting the case, said in a brief, three-page filing Thursday that federal prosecutors began this month to provide tens of thousands of documents which Trump had been seeking via subpoena. Bragg said that federal prosecutors had provided “approximately 31,000 pages of additional records” this week alone.
Trump has previously asked for a 90-day delay in the start of the trial; Bragg said in his most recent filing that he would not oppose a 30-day delay in light of the new document production.
Trump faces 34 counts over allegedly routing payments to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. With the Fulton County, Georgia judge mulling a trial date, the D.C. Jan. 6 case frozen as the Supreme Court weighs Trump’s claim of near-unlimited presidential immunity, and the Mar-a-Lago records case mired in a mess of the judge’s making, Bragg’s hush money case is set to be the first of the Trump prosecutions to make it to trial.
Per the Bragg filing, he sought records related to the case from federal prosecutors last year; Trump followed up with his own subpoena in January.
Federal prosecutors began producing tens of thousands of records in response to Trump’s subpoena this month, Bragg said, with more records to come. The records appear to include some documents that federal prosecutors “previously declined to provide,” Bragg said in the filing.
Bragg said that Trump had issued his subpoena effectively at the last minute and had agreed to multiple delays from the U.S. Attorney’s Office to start providing records in response.
“We note that the timing of the current production of additional materials from the USAO
is a function of defendant’s own delay,” Bragg wrote.
“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 material,” the filing reads.
Bragg also asked the judge to delay a deadline for his response to Trump’s discovery motions from Friday until Monday.
