The Manhattan decide who will preside over Donald Trump’s first prison trial agreed on Friday to push again the unique March 25 trial begin date by about three weeks.
The delay was prompted by the last-minute manufacturing by federal prosecutors in Manhattan of some 80,000 pages of potential proof regarding their 2018 prosecution of key witness Michael Cohen.
Merchan didn’t set a agency date, as he nonetheless should determine the newest Hail Mary protection request that the case be dismissed in its entirety, this time as a result of late proof dump.
Each side — the protection and Manhattan prosecutors — are blaming one another for the delay, although prosecutors additionally blame the US Legal professional’s Workplace for what they describe as unneccessary footdragging.
The overwhelming majority of the 80,000 pages, turned over in response to a January protection subpoena, is irrelevant to the hush-money case, prosecutors mentioned earlier Friday.
Merchan didn’t set a selected new date for jury choice in Friday’s letter to prosecutors and the protection.
As an alternative, he wrote, “Trial on this matter is adjourned for 30 days from the date of this letter on consent of the Folks.”
Protection legal professionals had requested for a 90-day delay.
The events will nonetheless meet March 25 in his courtroom for a listening to on what Merchan referred to as “important questions of reality which this Court docket should resolve earlier than it might rule on Defendant’s movement” to dismiss the case over the proof snafu.
The trial, which is predicted to final six weeks, may now run from mid-April till simply after Memorial Day, given the decide’s earlier plan to provide jurors the fourth week of April off.
New York Metropolis faculties have off that week, and it is also the week of Passover.
“We are going to proceed to combat to finish this hoax, and the entire different Crooked Joe Biden-directed Witch Hunts, as soon as and for all,” mentioned Steven Cheung, the Trump marketing campaign communications director.
