Manhattan prosecutors will not face sanctions for submitting a large volume of documents shortly before the scheduled start of President Trump's “hush money” criminal trial, a judge ruled on Thursday.
Judge Juan Merchan denied the defense's request to penalize prosecutors for delivering nearly 200,000 pages of evidence just weeks before the trial's start date. These documents stemmed from an earlier federal investigation into the matter.
Merchan had previously agreed to delay the trial from March 25 to April 15 to give Trump's legal team time to review the new material. However, he rejected the defense's claims of prosecutorial misconduct and refused to dismiss the case, delay it further, or bar key witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels from testifying.
In a written ruling issued Thursday, Merchan reiterated that Trump was not prejudiced by the document submission, as his legal team was given sufficient time to prepare. This conclusion was reached after reviewing submissions and timelines from both sides, as well as discussions at the March 25 hearing.
After hearing from 22 witnesses over the past month, including Cohen and Daniels, the trial is set to move to closing arguments next Tuesday, with jury deliberations expected to begin shortly thereafter.
Trump's lawyers had accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office of deliberately avoiding evidence from the 2018 federal investigation, which had led to Cohen's imprisonment. They claimed this was done to disadvantage Trump and impact his election prospects. Cohen, now a critic of Trump, was a key witness for the prosecution.
At the March 25 hearing, Merchan stated that the DA's office was not obligated to obtain evidence from the federal investigation and that the U.S. attorney's office was not required to provide the documents voluntarily. He emphasized that the situation was far from prosecutors obstructing the defense's access to documentation.
The DA's office denied any misconduct and criticized Trump's legal team for waiting until January 18 to subpoena the records, only nine weeks before the trial's initial start date. Merchan advised the defense that they should have acted sooner if they believed they lacked necessary records.
The Manhattan district attorney's office did not comment on the ruling, and Trump's lawyers were also unavailable for comment.
Read Merchan’s ruling on the matter here.
