The Manhattan district attorney’s office said in court papers Thursday that a large cache of newly disclosed documents contained little that might influence or delay the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump, which is scheduled to begin in mid-April.
In a surprising move, the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, agreed last week to allow a short delay in the trial, which had been scheduled to begin on March 25, to give Mr. Trump’s lawyers time to review the records. The documents had been turned over by federal prosecutors investigating Michael Cohen, the former president’s longtime fixer.
In Thursday’s filing, Mr. Bragg’s office downplayed the documents’ import, though it said its review was continuing.
“The people now have good reason to believe that this production contains only limited materials relevant to the subject matter of this case and that have not previously been disclosed to defendant,” the filing read. “The overwhelming majority of the production is entirely immaterial, duplicative or substantially duplicative of previously disclosed materials.”
It added that the current delay — until April 15 — “is a more than reasonable amount of time for defendant to review the information provided.”
Mr. Trump’s legal team has asked the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, to dismiss the charges entirely or delay the trial into the summer, blaming Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors for the belated disclosure of the records.
The documents in question came from the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which successfully prosecuted Mr. Cohen in 2018. Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have denied being responsible for the delay, noting that it was Mr. Trump’s lawyers who waited until early this year to subpoena the documents from the Southern District.
Mr. Trump is on the precipice of becoming the first former American president to be tried criminally. The district attorney’s case, filed almost exactly a year ago, centers on a hush-money payment Mr. Cohen made to a porn star in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election who said she had had an affair with Mr. Trump. The district attorney has argued that the cover-up cheated voters of the chance to fully assess Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
Mr. Trump, who is again the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has denied the charges, casting the case as a politically motivated hit job by Mr. Bragg, a Democrat.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
