March 15 (UPI) — The judge in former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan agreed Friday to delay the start of the trial until April.
Judge Juan Merchan said the start of the trial, previously set for March 25, would be pushed back 30 days from Friday.
Trump’s legal team had requested a 90-day delay after the Justice Department produced tens of thousands of documents this month.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the documents were “largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case,” but has said that he would accept a 30-day delay for the trial to start.
The documents relate to Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in 2018 to numerous criminal charges, including making hush-money payments to women who claimed they had affairs with Trump.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, to keep quiet about an affair during his 2016 presidential campaign.
He has pleaded not guilty.
The Manhattan trial was scheduled to be the first of four criminal cases against Trump. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday rejected one of Trump’s bids to throw out the case alleging he mishandled classified documents due to “unconstitutional vagueness.”
The former president also faces criminal charges for his roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election and in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
