Judge orders delay in Trump hush money trial until at least mid-April

New York, USA: The judge overseeing the expected first criminal trial of Donald Trump, which was due to begin this month, has pushed it back until at...

New York, USA: The judge overseeing the expected first criminal trial of Donald Trump, which was due to begin this month, has pushed it back until at least mid-April, saying that lawyers need more time to review a fresh set of potential evidence and that he wants to hear arguments about whether the material was handled properly.

The trial had been scheduled to start March 25 and would probably be the first criminal trial of a former president in U.S. history, given that Trump’s other criminal cases are mired in separate delays. But the timing was thrown into doubt this week as Trump’s lawyers accused prosecutors of dealing unfairly with them in the handling of more than 100,000 pages of material that could be evidence in the case.

The surprise scheduling twist is an outgrowth of the strange legal path that led to Trump being indicted last year on state charges of business records fraud for hush money paid made to an adult-film actress, a journey that started in the office of federal prosecutors in downtown Manhattan but ended up with state-level prosecutors a few blocks away.

The federal prosecutors wrested a guilty plea out of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen but chose not to pursue a criminal case against the former president. Now, records from that old case have come back to haunt the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who brought an indictment against Trump last year related to the hush money payments.

On Friday, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan sent a letter to the district attorney’s office and Trump’s lawyers notifying them that instead of starting jury selection March 25, as planned, he would push the trial back 30 days from the date of his letter.