Trump to ask judge to delay or dismiss Stormy Daniels hush money case
By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Donald Trump will ask a judge on Monday to delay or dismiss his trial on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star, citing thousands of pages of potential evidence about witness Michael Cohen that prosecutors turned over only weeks ago.
Cohen, Trump's onetime lawyer and fixer, made a $130,000 payment to silence adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she said they had a decade earlier — an encounter Trump denies.
Lawyers for Trump, the former U.S. president, accuse Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, which brought the criminal charges, of trying to bury documents that could help them challenge Cohen's credibility.
The documents came from the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan, which previously investigated the payment but did not charge Trump. Cohen testified that Trump directed him to make the payment and went to prison after pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws.
Trump's trial was initially scheduled to start on Monday, but prosecutors consented to a 30-day delay to give Trump time to review the new documents. Trump's defense is asking Justice Juan Merchan for another delay or for the charges to be thrown out altogether because of the late disclosure.
Merchan's decision will set the course for what could be the first-ever criminal trial of a former president. Trump, the Republican candidate to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election, has pleaded not guilty and called the case a politically motivated «witch hunt.»
On Monday morning, Trump said the case should be dismissed.
«No crime,» he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The case is one of several legal travails Trump, 77, faces
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