Former President Donald Trump's sentencing in his Manhattan criminal case won't take place until November—after the election—as Judge Juan Merchan granted Trump's request for a delay Friday in order to not wade into the November election.
Former President Donald Trump sits at the defendant's table as a jury continues deliberations for ... [+]
Merchan postponed the sentencing, originally scheduled for Sept. 18, until Nov. 26, also pushing back until Nov. 12 a planned decision on whether the verdict should be thrown out in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling giving Trump some immunity from criminal prosecution.
Trump asked the court to delay his Sept. 18 sentencing until after the election, arguing that holding it in September would play into prosecutors’ “election-interference objectives.”
He also argued it would not give him enough time to appeal the immunity ruling, which was originally scheduled to come out on Sept. 16.
While prosecutors didn’t agree with Trump’s election interference claims, they said they wouldn’t object to delaying the sentencing in order to give Trump time to appeal the immunity decision.
Merchan said he was pushing back the sentencing in order to avoid any possible claims that the sentence he gives is based on political bias, writing that adjourning the decision “should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and/or any candidate for any office.”
Noting that postponing the sentencing at all past Sept. 18 would put the sentencing within 41 days of the election, Merchan wrote, “The members of this jury served diligently on this case, and their verdict must be respected and addressed in a manner that is not diluted by the enormity of the upcoming presidential election.”
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has not yet responded to a request for comment, and Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said “there should be no sentencing” in the case—describing it as an “Election Interference Witch Hunt”—and called for the case and other cases against Trump to be dismissed in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“This is not a decision this Court makes lightly but it is the decision which in this Court’s view, best advances the interests of justice,” Merchan wrote.
Trump also sought to further postpone the sentencing by trying to move his criminal case to federal court, which could be allowed if his charges fell within the scope of his official duties. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied Trump’s request—for a second time—on Tuesday, ruling the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity did not change his opinion that the hush money payments at the heart of Trump’s case “were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority” and arguing it would be “highly improper” for him to evaluate the trial in state court. Trump has appealed Hellerstein’s ruling, but there hasn’t been any ruling on that appeal as of yet.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 felony counts, marking the first time a former president had ever been convicted of a crime. The ex-president was indicted based on a hush money payment his former attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, in order to cover up allegations of an affair (which Trump denies). Trump then reimbursed Cohen through a series of payments made throughout 2017, which prosecutors alleged were falsely labeled as being for legal payments. Though Trump opposed that allegation, a jury ultimately agreed, ruling against Trump on every count he was charged with.
Trump has sought to overturn his guilty verdict by pointing to evidence used at trial from when he was president, as the Supreme Court has ruled that ex-presidents cannot be held criminally liable for their “official acts” in office. That extends to prohibiting evidence based on official acts from being used at trial. The ex-president’s argument focuses on prosecutors’ claims that Trump exerted a “pressure campaign” in 2018—while he was in the White House—against Cohen, urging him not to “flip” and tell the government about the hush money scheme. Trump has pointed to evidence used at trial including testimony from former aides Hope Hicks and Madeline Westerhout, ethics disclosures Trump submitted while in office and tweets he wrote as president, claiming “the results of a trial conducted in breach of [the Supreme Court’s ruling] is invalid.” Legal experts have broadly predicted that Trump’s verdict won’t get thrown out, given that many of the allegations against Trump are from before he became president, though it’s still uncertain how the ruling will play out.
Trump’s effort to delay his sentencing in the hush money case came as the ex-president had already successfully postponed his other three criminal cases from going to trial before Election Day. His federal case for trying to overturn the 2020 election only just started moving forward again after being put on hold for months while the Supreme Court decided the immunity dispute, making it impossible for the case to go to trial by November. Trump’s other federal case for allegedly mishandling White House documents was dismissed, as Trump appointee U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Special Counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed, though Smith is now appealing the dismissal. The criminal case against Trump in Georgia for trying to overturn the 2020 election is also postponed until at least next year, as a Georgia appeals court has to decide first if Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified for her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. The appeals court won’t hear the dispute until December.