Less than two weeks before Donald J. Trump is set to go on trial for criminal charges in Manhattan, the prosecutors who brought the case asked a judge on Thursday to delay it up to 30 days, a startling development in the first prosecution of a former American president.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which accused Mr. Trump of covering up a sex scandal during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, sought the delay so it could review a new batch of records. It only recently obtained the records from federal prosecutors, who years ago investigated the same hush-money payments at the center of the case.
The potential postponement of the trial, which is scheduled to start with jury selection on March 25, would represent the latest delay on Mr. Trump’s sprawling legal docket. The criminal case against him in Washington, where he is accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election results, was initially supposed to go to trial this month, but that is delayed while Mr. Trump appeals to the Supreme Court.
A delay in the Manhattan case would most likely delight the former president, whose central strategy for fighting all of his legal entanglements is to stall as much as possible. If he is elected to a second term in November, the criminal cases against him would grind to a halt until he is out of office.