Trump loses bid to delay ‘hu$h’ trial

Donald Trump will go on trial in Manhattan on April 15, a judge ruled Monday, denying the former president’s bid to further delay or toss the “hush money” case against him.

Trump’s lawyers had sought to dismiss the case in Manhattan Supreme Court due to a recent document dump by the prosecution.

But Justice Juan Manuel Merchan, at the end of a 70-minute hearing, found that prosecutors had given Trump a “reasonable” amount of time to sift through thousands of pages of newly disclosed evidence relating to Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams’ case against Trump’s ex-fixer, Michael Cohen.

“This court finds that the DA is not at fault for the late production of documents,” Merchan said, as Trump shook his head twice. Prior to entering the courtroom, Trump declared: “This is a witch hunt. This is a hoax.”

After the hearing, he told reporters it was a “disgrace” that the trial will start during the presidential campaign.

“This is a case that could have been brought 3¹/₂ years ago. And now they’re fighting over days because they want to try and do it during the election. This is election interference. That’s all it is . . . and it’s a disgrace,” he said.

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts after allegedly covering up $130,000 in “hush money” payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels (inset) before the 2016 election.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump is now slated to be the first of his four criminal cases to head to trial and the first criminal trial of a former president.

Merchan’s ruling came after the judge grilled prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers about why 46,000 pages of evidence about Cohen was turned over by Bragg’s office only this month.

Prosecutors argued there’s little new material in the trove and no reason to delay the trial any further, with Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo saying the number of relevant documents “is quite small” — around 300 or fewer.

“We very much disagree,” Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, hit back, saying the number of relevant files totaled in the thousands.

But Merchan told Blanche, “You just heard one set of facts and interpreted it as the people not doing anything . . . I read it as the people going so far above and beyond what they were required to do that it’s odd that we are even here in the first place.”