New York Judge Indefinitely Postpones Trump Hush-Money Sentencing, Will Consider Dismissing Case

Judge Juan Merchan indefinitely postponed the sentencing hearing in President-elect Donald Trump’s New York criminal case, which had been planned for next week, in light of Trump’s election.

Merchan is giving Trump’s legal team more than a week to file its motion asking for a dismissal under the argument that his return to office provides him a new host of immunity-related defenses.

Trump’s lawyers will be required to file by December 2, after which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will have until December 9 to respond. 

Trump was convicted in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

The prosecution argued that Trump, his former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen, and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker participated in a conspiracy to defraud voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election by paying off women to conceal embarrassing stories about the then-presidential candidate’s sexual history, without properly recording those payments as campaign-finance expenses. The prosecution had to prove that Trump falsified the business records in order to conceal an underlying crime, in this case, a conspiracy to defraud the American people.

While Trump could face up to four years in prison, the more likely sentence in the case — should it move forward — would be probation, which could include some combination of a fine or community service, as the former and future president is a first-time offender.

“Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a letter filed Tuesday.

Trump’s team had requested a December 20 deadline to file.

Bragg, for his part, has argued in favor of freezing the case for the entirety of Trump’s term in office, and then revisiting the sentencing at the end of Trump’s tenure.

But Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove have argued dismissal of the case “is necessary under the Constitution and federal law to facilitate the orderly transition of Executive power — and in the interests of justice — following President Trump’s victory in the Electoral College and the popular vote in the 2024 Presidential election.”

Trump’s election has already led to a winding down of his federal cases led by special counsel Jack Smith, who filed requests seeking to halt his case related to Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election and to put a stop to his appeal in the classified documents case against Trump after the case was dismissed by a judge.

Trump’s other outstanding case, in Georgia, has been repeatedly delayed. No trial has been scheduled in that case, which also centers on Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election.