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Donald Trump’s first criminal trial was supposed to start this coming Monday in New York state court. Instead, a hearing is scheduled to take place that day that could determine when the hush money trial will actually happen. A filing from Manhattan prosecutors ahead of the hearing gives reason to think that the case should go to trial next month — or not too long after.
It was pushed back after the late production of Michael Cohen-related materials from federal prosecutors, who previously investigated the crucial witness in the state's case. Trump’s lawyers argued that alleged discovery violations warrant dismissal of the state case and sought a lengthy adjournment. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office agreed to a shorter delay, and Judge Juan Merchan postponed the trial until April 15, while setting Monday for a hearing on the discovery issue and to figure out when the trial will go forward.
When we initially learned about the late production, it wasn’t entirely clear whose fault it was or what the impact on the trial would be. While there may still be more to learn on this subject, a filing this week from Bragg’s office shows the difficulty in blaming it on state prosecutors — at least not in a way that should jeopardize the case. Not only did Manhattan state prosecutors apparently seek what they could, when they could, from the feds, but the volume of recently disclosed material that’s relevant to the criminal case appears to be relatively minimal. At any rate, it would be a different story if state prosecutors had evidence in their possession that they had failed to turn over to the defense in timely fashion, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office is outside of the district attorney’s control.
The state prosecutors wrote to Merchan that the “overwhelming majority of the production is entirely immaterial, duplicative or substantially duplicative of previously disclosed materials, or cumulative of evidence concerning Michael Cohen’s unrelated federal convictions that defendant has been on notice about for months.” From that, they conclude that, “Given the limited amount of new information in the recent productions and the USAO’s [U.S. Attorney’s Office's] completion of its productions, no relief beyond the adjournment already ordered by the Court is warranted.”
Unless the defense has evidence that undercuts the prosecution’s representation, it’s difficult to reach a different conclusion. At the very least, it’s hard to see why it warrants anything as drastic as dismissal. A more realistic question is how much longer the trial should be delayed for the defense to review the new information in preparation for trial. Monday’s hearing should give a better sense of where that’s headed.
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