Trump’s New York hush money trial officially delayed until at least mid-April

Donald Trump’s “hush money” criminal trial in Manhattan — which had been set to start later this month — will be delayed until at least April 15, a judge ruled Friday.

The delay came after the former president’s attorneys said they needed more time to sift through thousands of pages of newly disclosed evidence related to Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams’ prosecution of Trump’s ex fixer Michael Cohen — the planned star witness at the upcoming trial.

Trump’s trial on felony charges of covering up a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels that silenced her story about an alleged affair had been scheduled to start on March 25.

That date will instead be used for a hearing to probe the question of why the feds waited until Wednesday to turn over the 31,000 pages of evidence, with another 15,000 pages of evidence submitted on Friday, within two weeks of when jury selection was slated to start.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office blamed Trump for the delay and said that the ex-president’s lawyers had dragged their feet in asking the feds to turn over the documents.

The “vast majority” of the files are also “likely to be unrelated” to the case, the DA’s Office added in a court filing.

But Trump’s camp fired back in their own filing that it was prosecutors’ fault for not getting them the files, and claimed that the late disclosure breached the Republican presidential candidate’s right to a fair trial.

Any delay is a major win for Trump, who has spoken openly about wanting to push back his criminal cases until after November’s election.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges stemming from allegedly lying in his company records throughout 2017 that reimbursement payments to Cohen for the hush money payouts were actually made for “legal services.”

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to a campaign finance crime for the same payoffs and was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to serve three years in prison.