State prosecutors in New York said Thursday that fewer than 300 of the over 170,000 documents recently turned over to lawyers for former President Donald Trump are potentially relevant to his criminal defense and that their case alleging falsified business records should proceed to trial on April 15.
In a court filing, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said the vast majority of the mountains of evidence turned over by federal prosecutors that it considers new and relevant originated from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and has no bearing on the allegations against Trump.
“Enough is enough. These tactics by defendant and defense counsel should be stopped,” the DA’s filing said, referring to Trump’s attempts to further delay or derail the trial.
Cohen is expected to be a key witness in the trial, which was delayed until at least mid-April following the eleventh-hour disclosures by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. Trump’s lawyers have accused the DA’s office of failing to do its due diligence by getting the records earlier, and have asked Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss the charges as a punishment.
In its filing Thursday, the DA’s office called their arguments “a red herring.”
“Defendant has reacted to the USAO’s disclosures by demanding that this Court dismiss the charges, preclude witnesses, or adjourn the trial for at least ninety days; and by leveling wild and untrue allegations of misconduct and malfeasance,” the filing said. “Defendant’s accusations are wholly unfounded, and the circumstances here do not come close to warranting the extreme sanctions he has sought.”
Bragg’s office said while it’s still reviewing the materials, it now has “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: fewer than an estimated 270 documents.” It says most of the 270 documents are “corroborative of existing evidence.”





