The news that Donald Trumps one Criminal Case, one Criminal Case that was likely to go to trial before the november election may be delayed. Manhattan district attorney, alvin bragg Hush Money Case was set to go to trial on march 25th, less than two weeks today but now that date is in question. Trumps legal strategy, in all of his cases, has been to push them off as long as possible, preferably until the month of nephew where a. But today is not coming for a trump, or at least not directly. Today, d. A. Braggs office consented to a 30 day delay in the start of the trial but not because d. A. Bragg needs another month. The issue at hand is a new trove of records that were turned over by the feds, the u. S. Attorneys office for the Southern District of a gap. Tens of thousands of records. Specifically, 31,000 pages of records at the u. S. Attorneys office just handed over to Braggs Office yesterday. Now, the d. A. Specifically pens this newest delay on trump, saying that trumps legal team waited until just two months ago to request this massive trove of records from the u. S. Attorneys office. Dont get me wrong, i am sure trumps legal team is using every opportunity that exists to create delays in this case. That is what they do. The d. A. Braggs office and the u. S. Attorneys office know that. And one of the reasons this appears to be happening so late in the game is because the u. S. Attorneys office requested repeated extensions that trumps side consented to according to d. A. Bragg. When the New York Times asked the u. S. Attorneys office for comment on the delay, the office declined to respond. The fact that this latest delay might be the responsibility of an arm of the Justice Department would be a big deal on its own, but this case is not alone. This delay would seem to fit a pattern. Just hours after Merrick Garland was sworn in as Attorney General, he held a private thing to get up to speed on what he promised with his highest priority, bringing to justice the people responsible for january 6th. And then, more than a year passed. Witnesses in the fake electors scheme told the Washington Post that they assumed the case was dead, because no one at the doj was contacting them. Remember, trumps infamous call to Georgia Terry secretary of state brad raffensperger, the colbert pressured raffensperger to find him 11,000 votes. He witnesses to that call in early 2021 told the Washington Post that no one at the fbi contacted them until 2023, two years after the fact. What was happening in the Department Of Justice at that time . Thanks to great reporting from the Washington Post, we know that the answer to that question is not much. Internal debate in heated arguments over this choice. But for more than a year the Justice Department policy was to go after the little guys and work their way up. As one former Justice Department official told the post, you couldnt use the t work, meaning you could not mention trump. The way the Washington Post reports it, the Department Of Justice was so worried about looking like they were prosecuting donald trump for political reasons that they gave trump treatment no other american would get. They effectively ignored him despite the fact that he was at the very center of this plot. It wasnt until intrepid reporting and the House January 6th Committee started Unearthing Troves of evidence and forgetting trump and his top aides in the january 6th riot which, doc, it wasnt until the all that started coming out publicly that the Justice Department actually began investigating trump in earnest. Ultimately, the fbi did open an investigation into trump, the guy at the Beating Heart Of Everything until 15 months after the capital attack. Key witnesses, in the meantime, deleted emails. Ended also said the actual prosecution of this case back more than a year. And now the window of time in which the case could make it to trial before the november election is so small it seems nearly impossible that the American Public will get a ruling before they have to vote for president. We saw a similar delay coming from the Department Of Justice in the maralago classified documents case. Remember that form that trumps lawyer signed on his behalf in june of 2022 . The client that trumps legal team had performed a delegate search and it turned over all the classified documents. Thanks, yet again, to extensive reporting in the Washington Post, we know that it is almost that point is almost where the entire classified document investigation ended. It turns out there was a months long fight between prosecutors who had evidence suggesting that trump and his lawyers might not be telling the whole truth. Prosecutors who wanted to search maralago and the fbi. The fbi wanted to take trump and his lawyers at their word. They did not want to touch donald trump. The objects were too controversial. That infighting delayed the actual search of maralago for months. Of course, when mara lago was ultimately searched, fbi agents found more than 100 classified documents, 18 of them topsecret. By the fall of 2022, prosecutors were reportedly ready to charge trump based on what they had found. It looks like a very straightforward case. But they did not charge trump. Before they could, trump announced he was running for re election. And the calculations within the Department Of Justice changed. Once again, the department deferred to trump and his political realities. To avoid anything that might even look like Political ProsecutionAttorney GeneralMerrick Garland appointed jack smith as Special Counsel. Smith worked really quite quickly but ultimately he didnt charge trump until june of the following year. That set back the Prosecution Timeline another eight months. Now, the classified documents case is currently scheduled, scheduled to go on trial on may 20th but that date is widely expected to be bumped back. Potentially delayed, that trial just past november election and missing that he date by a matter of months after being delayed for nearly a year by, yes, judge cannon, but also indecision, infighting, and the passing of the case to a Special Counsel at the Department Of Justice. Looking back now, do you think that it took too long to bring these cases, maybe . Please georgia prosecutors follow the fax and there are cases when they felt like they were ready. Please so we already know that one of the reasons trump might not face accountability before the election in either of his federal Criminal Cases is because of the Department Of Justice dragged its feet and fought internally and was cautious to a fault. But now, tonight, we learn that even in a state level prosecution, in d. A. Braggs New York StateHush Money Case, the most likely case to see trial before the november election, even in that case, it looks like the Justice Department may be playing a very real role in delaying justice. Joining me now are former fbi counsel Andrew Wiseman and Nyu Law Professor alyssa marie. Together they are the authors of the brandnew number one, not bad, guys, New York Times best seller, the trump indictment, historic charging documents commentary. Congratulations on this. It is not the holidays but it is not too early to buy copies for every person in your family and we will talk about that in a second. I have to get your opinion on what is happened here in the new york Hush Money Case because on the outside, yes, i understand trump is doing everything he can but what is going on here with the Department Of Justice and their ability to get the d. A. And the defendants that the documents they needed in a timely fashion . Selfinflicted wound. It doesnt look good, especially when we are making a decision on da fani willis, even if there is a decision not to disqualify her, the combination at the very least, this is a massive stir up. Prosecutors, really poor judgment not to have turned everything over a year ago when the d. A. S office outstretched for information. If you got inculpatory information you have got to turn that over. If you got Tori Information coming to turn that over. It was just a bad decision. Im very focused on for this isnt going to be fatal to the case. There will be a trial. Im very fixed on what the information is. One thing to note is that the d. A. S submission today said that there is still more to come. So it is worth knowing, they do not yet know, neither side, not the d. A. Nor the defense knows exactly what the full scope is. I think that there could be information that is additional by Michael Cohen, remember, Michael Cohen pled guilty there and prosecutors had publicly said at the plea hearing how much they distrusted him. They were very much fighting with our office, the Special Counsels office, we were saying he should get credit, you were saying no he shouldnt. They could be more information about that. There could be more information about Allen Weisselberg because reading the tea leaves it appears that Allen Weisselberg may have given information to the maybe even testified to a grand jury. And he has already pled guilty to perjury . Exactly, but there could be more complications there. There also could be discussions about the theory of the case, of the federal campaign. Why do i say that . Because if you remember, less go back in a time machine to when bill barr was the Attorney General that was fighting with the acting u. S. Attorney, Audrey Stratus saying that you essentially should get rid of the case and she pushed back. So there could just be a whole massive material, and that is what im keeping my eye on, what is the information and is it going to be something that is really meaningful, exactly. But i dont fundamentally understand, and this is according to d. A. Bragg, he asked for a lot of this material last year and did not get it. And then trump asks for it in january and so far, 103,000, i think, is the count, pages of documents have been turned over. I mean, what might possibly account for that . I think one thing you have to understand is although all of these u. S. Attorneys offices are part of the federal Department Of Justice, the Prosecutorial Offices working under the Department Of Justice, they all enjoy a fair amount of autonomy. The district of new york is also colloquially known as the sovereign district of new york. And they take that sovereignty quite seriously. So yes, they dont always play well with other offices, state level prosecutions. They are doing their own thing, quite a lot of the time. This may be one of the situation. I think the thing to take from all of this is that this delay is not necessarily alvin braggs fault. He definitely asks for this information a year ago, it wasnt forthcoming. Now it has been disclosed and apparently is an avalanche of documents with more to come. And he has done the right thing which is to concede that there should be a delay. He has pushed back on the defendants request for a 90 day delay. He has requested a 30 day delay to go through these documents. But he has prioritized the rates of this defendant to have an opportunity to review these documents against him, review the documents that may have information about those who testify against him and present the most vigorous defense that he can and that is exactly what he should be doing. Plea yeah, and he is the one saying a 30 day delay would be fine by me. I can do the final today but i can also take it when i have had time to prepare for it. Well, one of the things i dont understand, andrew, is he makes note of the fact that the feds effectively said we need another delay, mr. Trump, in terms of getting you this material. Repeatedly asking for extensions. All trump wants to do is delay this thing. What would account for, first of all, they were after this material last year, then they ask for it again in january and then they still say we need more time and now it is the eve of the trial beginning effectively and they are still not done giving documents. How is that process . Does that seem plausible to you how does the process work that it might be so greatly slowed . Plea one thing that i dont think happened is i dont think that justice was involved. It could be, but i just dont think that is the case. I agree with melissa that offices can, in a lot of circumstances, particularly in the Southern District of new york, decided that does answer your question, it just deals with Merrick Garland somehow part of this. As we have discussed, issues in terms of the speed or lack thereof on, with respect to the Attorney General. I do think this was something i would immediately jump to have. It is hard to know how this could happen. I can tell you that my reaction and friends who either had worked in the d. A. S office or worked at the District Attorneys Office all had the same reaction which is not something i can say on air. On this family program. And because it is either just a colossal blunder or just such a wrong view in terms of the judge called here, in terms of what needs to be done. The idea that it sent clearly took alvin bragg buy supplies. At the very least, if you thought you had a huge cache of documents you would call up the d. A. And say you know what . We just found, or something. It is clear that did not happen. To me that is part of it, too. Donald trump has been saying throughout all of these investigations, and now these indictments, that all of these various Law Enforcement officials are working in tandem. This is a collusive effort to selectively prosecute him. This makes clear that that is not the case. The Southern District of new york is not working. Clear wildly dysfunctional, not correlating anything. Please complete this function but certainly not the collusion that he has applied. A great defense, of course. So dysfunctional that they can be colluding. But andrew, i got to push back a little bit. Im not suggesting that Merrick Garland was the puppeteer of dropping one thousand people piece of the paper but i do think this is a week where robert hur has gone to the hill with this highly controversial report that the white house said , that i think a lot of folks, not even just democrats say, was filled with just out of School Commentary about President Bidens mental acuity. The mere appointment of robert hur was a subject of debate and went he came up, just so political in nature and not to the support of the current Optic Occupant of the white house. It all serves to paint a picture of a Justice Department that seems hopelessly concerned with how they are going to be perceived on the right. Please so i agree with that i am just trying to be sort of judicious about it, taking each set of circumstances at the same time and looking at them to give them fair weight. I agree with you. I think that is a small p political decision. To not have criticism, so you appoint someone who is a republican. I think that is a massive mistake, i think it buys into the idea that special councils cant act out of principle. And if you coin drop her, that is what you get. I think that is absolutely right to be critical of that decision and i think it is important because i think it deals with sort of what would happen next to kind of coordinate the milestones to say you know what . This is what you get if you dont actually back your people and thinking that anybody, judges, prosecutors, jurors, witnesses will act out of principle. I just think in the situation, i dont know what was motivating the Southern District of new york. I just dont think they would have coordinator this. I do think Merrick Garland, he may make wrong decisions but i do not see him trying to slow this down by saying, do not turn inculpatory information over to prosecutors and escalatory information. The prosecutor is gone want to know both of those and it is going to feel like he has an obligation to turn over both of those things to the defense. Plea but i think to alexs point, th