Manhattan prosecutors won’t face penalties for a last-minute document dump that delayed former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial. On Thursday, Judge Juan Merchan ruled against sanctioning prosecutors for releasing nearly 200,000 pages of evidence just weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin. These documents were from a previous federal investigation.
Judge Merchan did agree to postpone the trial from March 25 to April 15, giving Trump’s lawyers more time to review the new material. However, he dismissed their claims of prosecutorial misconduct and refused to delay the trial further, dismiss the case, or bar key witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels from testifying.
In his written ruling, Merchan stated that Trump and his legal team were not unfairly affected by the document release, as they had adequate time to prepare. This conclusion was based on submissions and arguments from both sides.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office declined to comment on the ruling, and Trump’s legal team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
After a month of testimony from 22 witnesses, including Cohen and Daniels, the trial is moving to closing arguments next Tuesday, with jury deliberations expected to start as early as Wednesday.
Trump’s lawyers had accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office of deliberately ignoring evidence from the 2018 federal investigation, which led to Cohen’s imprisonment. They argued that this was an attempt to disadvantage Trump and damage his election prospects. Cohen, now a vocal critic of Trump, was a key witness for the prosecution.
Judge Merchan stated that the DA’s office was not required to gather evidence from the federal investigation and criticized Trump’s lawyers for waiting until January 18 to subpoena the records, just nine weeks before the trial was supposed to start.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records by mislabeling payments to Cohen as legal fees when they were actually reimbursements for an alleged $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels. Prosecutors claim this was part of an effort to protect Trump’s 2016 campaign by burying false stories of extramarital affairs. Trump denies the allegations, insisting the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance violations related to the Daniels payment, stating that Trump directed him to make the arrangement. Federal prosecutors indicated they believed Cohen, but Trump was never charged.