Former President Donald Trump faces state charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of falsifying business records in order to interfere with an election. The prosecution arises from Trump having allegedly concealed $130,000 paid to actress and director Stormy Daniels in the months before the 2016 presidential election in an effort to avoid worsening the storm of bad publicity accompanying the airing of a videotape in which he brags about grabbing women by their genitals without their consent.

The case had been scheduled to commence March 25—making it the first criminal case to be tried against Trump. Even though it has now been postponed—it still appears likely to be the only one of the four criminal cases against Trump to have a chance of being tried before the 2024 election.

But the March 25th start date has now been delayed amidst a flurry of motions filed by Trump’s defense lawyers, claiming that just-produced discovery documents will make it impossible for them to prepare in time. Among the remedies they’ve requested are a delay of the trial and even dismissal of the charges.

The new documents involve some 100,000 pages—a significant amount, but not a particularly overwhelming number in 2024, when data disclosure is measured sometimes in terabytes.

Much of the late production can be attributed to the fact that the case was previously in the hands of federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, who had looked at the........

© The Daily Beast