NEW YORK — A judge on Friday decided to delay Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush-money case until after the November election, giving him a stay of execution as he deals with the aftermath of his conviction and the final stretch of his presidential campaign.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan, who is also considering a defense request to overturn the verdict on immunity grounds, postponed Trump’s sentencing until Nov. 26, three weeks after the final votes in the presidential election are cast.
It was scheduled for September 18, about seven weeks before Election Day. The new date is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
Merchan wrote that he was delaying sentencing “to avoid any appearance, however unwarranted, that the proceedings have been influenced by or are intended to influence the approaching presidential election in which the defendant is a candidate.”
“The Court is a fair, impartial and apolitical institution,” he added, writing that its decision should “repel any suggestion” that it is not.
Trump’s lawyers have pushed for a delay on several fronts, file a petition with the court and ask a question federal court will interveneThey argued that punishing the former president and current Republican candidate while he is in the midst of his campaign to retake the White House would amount to election interference.
Trump’s lawyers argued that delaying his sentencing until after the election would also give him time to consider next steps after Merchan ruled on the defense’s request to overturn his conviction and dismiss the case due to the US Supreme Court ruling in July ruling on presidential immunity.
In his order on Friday, Merchan postponed a decision on the matter until November 12.
A federal judge denied Trump’s request on Tuesday to have the U.S. District Court in Manhattan take over Merchan’s case from the state court. If they had been successful, Trump’s lawyers said then they would have sought to have the verdict overturned and the case dismissed on immunity grounds. Trump is appealing the federal court’s decision and has asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to halt the postconviction proceedings. That court has not yet ruled.
Merchan’s decision continues a string of good legal fortunes for Trump in the past two months. A federal case in Florida accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents was dismissed in July, while the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling will cause significant delays in a separate federal case in Washington, D.C., accusing him of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.
“There should be no conviction in the Manhattan DA’s Election Interference Witch Hunt,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement after Merchan’s ruling. He said all cases against Trump should be dismissed because of the Supreme Court’s decision.
A message seeking comment was left for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Trump’s case. That office had not taken a position on the defense’s request for a delay, referring the case to Merchan.
Election Day is November 5, but many states allow voters to cast their ballots earlier. In some states, the process even begins a few days before or after the September 18 date.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. Daniels alleges she and Trump had a sexual encounter a decade earlier after meeting at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.
Prosecutors saw the payout as part of a Trump-led effort to prevent voters from hearing racy stories about him during his first presidential campaign. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels and was later reimbursed by Trump, whose firm reported the fees as legal expenses.
Trump claims the stories were false, that the fees were for legal work and were properly recorded, and that the case — brought by Democrat Alvin Bragg, Manhattan district attorney — was part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” aimed at damaging his current campaign.
Democrats supporting their party’s nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, have made his condemnation central to their message.
In speeches at the party’s sentencing in Chicago last month, President Joe Biden called Trump a “convicted felon” running against a former prosecutor. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, called Trump a “career criminal, with 34 crimes, two impeachments and one porn star to prove it.”
Trump’s Democratic opponent in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, prompted a chant of “Lock him up” from the crowd at the party convention when she joked that Trump “fell asleep at his own trial, and when he woke up, he made his own history: the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions.”
Falsifying corporate records carries a maximum penalty of four years in prison. Other possible penalties include probation, a fine or a suspended sentence, with Trump required to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime.
Trump has promised to appeal, but that can only happen after he is convicted.
In their request for a delay, Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argued that the short time between the scheduled immunity decision on September 16 and the sentencing, which was to have taken place two days later, was unfair to Trump.
In preparation for a Sept. 18 sentencing, the attorneys said, prosecutors would submit their sentencing recommendation while Merchan is still considering whether to dismiss the case. If Merchan rules against Trump, he would need “sufficient time to evaluate and pursue state and federal appellate options,” they said.
The Supreme Court’s immunity decision limits the prosecution of former presidents for official acts and limits the ability of prosecutors to cite official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial acts were illegal.
Trump’s lawyers argue that, given the ruling, the jury in the hush-money case should not have heard evidence such as testimony from former White House aides who described how the then-president responded to reporting about the Daniels deal.