Manhattan prosecutors will not be penalized for a last-minute document dump that prompted former President Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial to begin later than planned, a judge said Thursday.
Judge Juan Merchan denied the defense’s request that prosecutors be sanctioned for producing roughly 200,000 pages of evidence mere weeks before the trial was set to begin. The materials stemmed from an earlier federal probe into the subject.
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Merchan agreed to postpone the trial from March 25 to April 15 to allow the former president’s lawyers to analyze the evidence. However, at a March hearing, he dismissed their contention that the case was contaminated by prosecutorial misconduct and denied their request to delay the trial, dismiss it outright, or prohibit key prosecution witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels from testifying.
Merchan reiterated in a written opinion issued Thursday that Trump suffered no harm as a result of the document dump since he and his counsel were “given a reasonable amount of time to prepare and respond to the material.”
Merchan stated that he reached this judgment after studying written submissions from both sides, including dates they submitted to him detailing the disclosure of information, as well as arguments and explanations made at the March 25 hearing on the subject.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the ruling. A message seeking comment was left with Trump’s attorneys.
After 22 witnesses testified over the previous month, including Cohen and Daniels, the first criminal trial of a former president will go to closing arguments next Tuesday, with jury deliberations beginning as early as Wednesday.
Trump’s lawyers accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office of purposely failing to pursue evidence from the 2018 federal probe that resulted in the imprisonment of Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen.
They claimed that prosecutors working for Bragg, a Democrat, did so to obtain an unfair edge in the case and hurt Trump’s electoral chances. Cohen, now an outspoken Trump critic, was a major prosecution witness against his former boss.
Merchan stated at the March 25 hearing that the DA’s office was under no obligation to gather evidence from the federal inquiry, nor was the US Attorney’s Office compelled to offer the records. The judge described what happened as a “far cry” from Manhattan prosecutors “injecting themselves in the process and vehemently and aggressively attempting to obstruct your ability to obtain documentation.”
“It’s just not what happened,” Merchan stated.
The DA’s office denied misconduct and faulted Trump’s lawyers for waiting until January 18 to obtain the information from the US attorney’s office, nine weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin. Merchan advised defense counsel to act sooner if they suspected they did not have all of the records they sought.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to allegations that he falsified corporate records by misrepresenting payments to Cohen, then his personal lawyer, as legal costs on his company’s books when they were actually reimbursements for an alleged $130,000 hush money payment he made to Daniels. Manhattan prosecutors believe Trump did it to protect his 2016 campaign by suppressing what he claims are false stories about extramarital sex.
Trump’s lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were reasonable legal expenditures, not cover-up cash. Trump denied having sex with Daniels.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance charges relating to the Daniels payoff. He claimed Trump told him to arrange it, and federal prosecutors stated they believed him, but Trump was never indicted.
