Manhattan DA agrees to postpone Donald Trump’s sentencing in hush money case but opposes dismissal
Former US President Donald Trump leaves the courtroom at the end of the day's proceedings in his criminal trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 14 in New York City.
By Paula Reid, Kara Scannell, Jeremy Herb and Lauren del Valle, CNN
(CNN) — The Manhattan district attorney’s office said Tuesday it would agree to postpone Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case to give prosecutors time to litigate the president-elect’s expected motion to dismiss the case.
In a letter to Judge Juan Merchan, the district attorney’s office also acknowledged that Trump is not likely to be sentenced “until after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term.” But the DA says Trump’s felony conviction should stand.
A source close to the district attorney’s office said it is open to a four year pause of the case.
The developments cap a historic and unprecedented turnaround for Trump’s legal and political fate. One year ago, Trump was facing four separate indictments. Now, as he prepares to retake the White House, the strategy of Trump’s lawyers to try to push all of his cases beyond the 2024 election has proved wildly successful, with the two federal cases about to be wound down, the Georgia state case long dormant and the New York case poised to end indefinitely without a sentence.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records over payments made to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair before the 2016 election. (Trump has denied the affair.)
In the letter to Merchan, the Manhattan district attorney argued the judge should not dismiss Trump’s conviction.
“No current law establishes that a president’s temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a post-trial criminal proceeding that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution and that is based on official conduct for which the defendant is also not immune,” the district attorney’s office wrote.
In a statement, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called the filing “a total and definitive victory for President Trump.”
Merchan had been set to rule last week on whether to overturn the conviction based on this summer’s US Supreme Court decision that Trump should receive broad immunity for official acts during his time in office and that official acts can’t be used as evidence in a criminal trial.
But the district attorney’s office acknowledged the “unprecedented circumstances” of Trump’s election as president, and Merchan’s ruling was postponed.
Trump’s lawyers have argued the conviction should be tossed both because of the presidential immunity decision and because he’s about to return to the White House.
“The stay, and dismissal, are necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern,” Trump attorney Emil Bove wrote in emails exchanged with the court and the district attorney’s office this month. Trump has picked Bove to fill a high-ranking Justice Department spot in his new administration.
Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former prosecutor, said Tuesday that the postponement of Trump’s sentencing was an inevitable outcome of his election.
“The clock ran out,” Honig said. “We like to say no person is above the law in this country, but the fact is one person largely is, and that’s the president, because of the immunity ruling and because of the DOJ policy” that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.
“That’s just sort of the cold, hard reality of the way our system works,” he added.
Trump seeks to dismiss case
In a two-page letter docketed Wednesday, Trump defense attorney and deputy attorney general selection Todd Blanche argues that Trump’s reelection “mandates” dismissal of the case writing, “Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect.”
Trump’s lawyers argue that continuing with this case would be “uniquely destabilizing” and “hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus, both in foreign and domestic affairs.”
His lawyers are asking the court to give them until December 20 to file a motion to dismiss. The Manhattan DA had asked for a deadline of December 9, but Trump’s lawyers say they want additional time so they can see “positions taken by DOJ in the federal case.” Special counsel Jack Smith has said he will put forth a plan to wind down the two federal cases he has brought against Trump by December 2.
“On November 5, 2024, the Nation’s People issued a mandate that supersedes the political motivations of DANY’s ‘People.’ This case must be immediately dismissed,” the letter states.
Sentencing was delayed twice before election
Trump was indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg last spring, the first of four indictments he would face in 2023.
It would ultimately be the only case against Trump to go to trial: The federal election subversion case was delayed indefinitely by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling; a Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed the classified documents case; and the Georgia case has languished amid a push from Trump and his co-defendants to have the Fulton County district attorney removed from the case.
A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts after a two-month trial.
But Trump’s sentencing, originally scheduled for July, was delayed twice after the Supreme Court’s immunity decision prompted Trump’s lawyers to file a motion to vacate the conviction. That effort, along with other tactics, including seeking to move the case into federal court, further delayed the proceedings and prompted Merchan to push the sentencing decision and a ruling on immunity until after the November election.
Trump’s lawyers have argued the conviction should be tossed because the district attorney’s office relied on evidence related to Trump’s official acts as president during his first term, which should not have been presented to the jury at trial.
Bragg’s office has said Trump’s conviction should stand and that the evidence presented at trial was “overwhelming.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
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