The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case in New York has postponed sentencing to Sept. 18, according to a letter sent to the parties. The move came after the Manhattan district attorney’s office said earlier Tuesday it would not oppose Trump’s request to file a motion arguing that his hush money conviction should be tossed based on Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
“Although we believe defendant’s arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” assistant district attorney Josh Steinglass wrote in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan.
On Monday, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling that Trump has some presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken to overturn results of the 2020 election, Trump’s attorneys sent a letter to Judge Merchan asking him to “set aside the jury’s verdict” in his hush money case.
Judge Merchan, in his response Tuesday, signaled to the parties that he would rule on Trump’s motion to set aside his conviction on Sept. 6. He gave Trump until July 10 to submit papers and the DA’s office until July 24 to respond. Sentencing had originally been scheduled for July 11, just days before Trump is scheduled to claim the GOP presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention. Merchan has now set sentencing for Sept. 18 at 10 a.m. ET.
Trump in May was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
In the defense’s letter to Judge Merchan, which was made public Tuesday, defense attorneys argued Trump’s conviction should be thrown out because prosecutors relied on evidence and testimony they believe should have been protected by presidential immunity, including several of Trump’s tweets, a government ethics form, and the testimony of former Trump aide Hope Hicks.
“The verdicts in this case violate the presidential immunity doctrine and create grave risks of ‘an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself,'” defense attorney Todd Blanche wrote. “After further briefing on these issues beginning on July 10, 2024, it will be manifest that the trial result cannot stand.”
Defense lawyers highlighted testimony from Hicks, who said Trump preferred the story of his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels — which he denies — come out after the 2016 election. “I think Mr. Trump’s opinion was it was better to be dealing with it now, and that it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election,” Hicks testified. Prosecutor Josh Steinglass called the testimony “devastating.”
“She basically burst into tears a few minutes — a few seconds after that because she realized how much this testimony puts the nail in Mr. Trump’s coffin,” Steinglass said during his closing argument.
The defense appears to be relying on a portion of the Supreme Court opinion that said, “Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.”
Trump’s lawyers also argued that Trump’s social media posts about his former lawyer Michael Cohen, a 2018 filing from the Office of Government Ethics, and phone records from Trump’s time in office should have not been allowed.
During Trump’s effort to remove the state case to federal court in 2023, Judge Alvin Hellerstein determined that Trump’s alleged conduct in the case was “purely a personal item” outside of Trump’s official duties.
“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was purely a personal item of the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” Hellerstein wrote in a July 2023 decision denying Trump’s effort to remove the case to federal court. “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the President’s official duties.”
Monday’s Supreme Court ruling determined that Trump is entitled to “at least presumptive immunity” from criminal prosecution for official acts taken while in office. Trump’s hush money case is the first of his four criminal cases to be impacted by the landmark ruling, which is expected to delay and narrow the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
A New York judge on Tuesday delayed Donald Trump’s sentencing date in his criminal hush money case by more than two months, following a request by the former president’s attorneys to challenge his conviction. Trump’s criminal sentencing, if it still happens, will now take place Sept. 18, about seven weeks before the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was previously set to be sentenced July 11. But Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan in Tuesday’s order canceled that date, while granting a request by Trump’s attorneys to file a motion seeking to overturn his guilty verdict. That request came in light of Monday’s bombshell Supreme Court ruling that former presidents are entitled to “presumptive immunity” for all official acts they performed in office.
Trump’s lawyers now have until July 10 to file a motion to set aside the hush money verdict. Prosecutors, who did not oppose Trump’s bid to delay the sentencing date, must file their response by July 24. Merchan said he will reach a decision on the matter by Sept. 6. Trump’s sentencing will occur Sept. 18 at 10 a.m. ET, “if such is still necessary,” Merchan ruled.
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision instantly threatened to undermine some of the numerous active criminal cases against Trump. The hush money case, which will likely be the only one against Trump to head to trial before the Nov. 5 presidential election, ended on May 30 with Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The case centered on a $130,000 payment made shortly before the 2016 election to porn star Stormy Daniels, who says she had sex with Trump while he was married years earlier. Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, who made the payment, was reimbursed by Trump after he became president.
In a letter to Merchan on Monday, Trump’s attorneys asked for a July 10 deadline to submit a legal memo in support of their bid to set aside the guilty verdict. And “because of the complexity of the issues presented,” they added, “President Trump does not object to an adjournment of the July 11, 2024 sentencing date in order to allow adequate time for full briefing, oral argument, and a decision.”
The attorneys argued in the letter that, under the Supreme Court’s latest ruling, certain evidence prosecutors introduced at trial “should never have been put before the jury” because it pertained to official presidential acts. Their letter referenced the then-president’s social media posts and public statements.
“The verdicts in this case violate the presidential immunity doctrine and create grave risks of ‘an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself,’” they wrote, quoting the majority opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts. “After further briefing on these issues beginning on July 10, 2024, it will be manifest that the trial result cannot stand,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
Prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, in their own letter to Merchan on Tuesday, said they believe Trump’s arguments are meritless. But “we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” the prosecutors wrote.
The Supreme Court’s ruling came as part of a separate criminal case charging Trump with illegally conspiring to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. That case was put on ice for months while Trump and special counsel Jack Smith grappled over whether former presidents are immune from prosecution for their official acts.
Judges in federal district court and the federal appellate circuit in Washington, D.C., had rejected Trump’s claim of “absolute immunity” for all official acts. But the Supreme Court’s six-member conservative majority vacated those decisions, ruling Monday that ex-presidents have “at least presumptive immunity from prosecution” for those acts.
That immunity holds “unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no ‘dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch,’” Roberts wrote. The majority also appeared to limit the evidence that can be used in a criminal prosecution of a former president, even if they are only accused of unofficial conduct. Using evidence of official conduct in such a prosecution would defeat the intended effect of the president’s immunity, Roberts wrote. Doing so “would thereby heighten the prospect that the President’s official decisionmaking will be distorted.”
The decision drew a vehement response from the court’s three liberal justices, including Sonia Sotomayor, who expressed “fear for our democracy” in a scathing dissent.
In a major reprieve for former President Donald Trump, sentencing for his hush money convictions was postponed Tuesday until at least September — if ever — as the judge agreed to weigh the possible impact of a new Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. Trump had been scheduled to face sentencing July 11, just before the Republicans’ nominating convention, on his New York convictions on felony charges of falsifying business records. He denies any wrongdoing.
The postponement sets the sentencing for Sept. 18 at the earliest — if it happens at all, since Trump’s lawyers are arguing that the Supreme Court ruling merits not only delaying the sentencing but tossing out his conviction. “The impact of the Immunity Ruling is a loud and clear signal for Justice in the United States,” Trump crowed on his Truth Social media site after the sentencing was delayed.
Using all capital letters, he claimed the Supreme Court’s decision netted him “total exoneration” in this and other criminal cases he faces. There was no immediate comment on the sentencing postponement from Manhattan prosecutors, who brought the hush money case.
Though the Sept. 18 date is well after this month’s Republican National Convention, where Trump is set formally to accept the party’s nomination for president in this year’s race, it is far closer to Election Day, which could put the issue top-of-mind for voters just as they seriously tune into the race. Because of absentee voting timelines in certain states, some voters may already have cast ballots before anyone knows whether the former president will have to spend time in jail or on home confinement.
The delay caps a string of political and legal wins for Trump in recent days, including the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling and a debate widely seen as a disaster for Democratic President Joe Biden. The immunity decision all but closed the door on the possibility that Trump could face trial in his 2020 election interference case in Washington before this November’s vote. The timeline in itself is a victory for the former president, who has sought to delay his four criminal cases past the balloting.
An appeals court recently paused a separate election interference case against Trump, in Georgia; no trial date has been set. His federal classified documents case in Florida remains bogged down by pretrial disputes that have resulted in an indefinite cancelation of the trial date. Monday’s Supreme Court ruling granted broad immunity protections to presidents, while also restricting prosecutors from citing any official acts as evidence in trying to prove a president’s unofficial actions violated the law. The high court held that former presidents are absolutely immune from prosecution for actions that fall within their core constitutional duties, such as interacting with the Justice Department, and at least presumptively immune for all other official acts. The justices left intact the longstanding principle that no immunity exists for purely personal acts.
It’s not clear how the decision will affect the New York hush money case. Its underpinnings involved allegations that a pre-presidency Trump participated in a scheme to stifle sex stories that he feared would be damaging to his 2016 campaign. But the actual charges had to do with payments made in 2017 to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who had shelled out hush money on Trump’s behalf. Trump was president when he signed relevant checks to Cohen. Trump’s lawyers sought unsuccessfully before the trial to keep out certain evidence that they said concerned official acts, including social media posts he made as president. New York Judge Juan M. Merchan said in April it would be “hard to convince me that something that he tweeted out to millions of people voluntarily cannot be used in court when it’s not being presented as a crime. It’s just being used as an act, something he did.” When Trump vied unsuccessfully last year to get the hush-money case moved from state court to federal court, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the former president’s claim that allegations in the hush money indictment involved official duties.
“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely personal item of the president — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” Hellerstein wrote last year. Hours after Monday’s Supreme Court ruling, Trump’s attorney requested that Merchan set aside the jury’s guilty verdict and delay the sentencing to consider how the high court’s ruling could affect the hush money case. Merchan wrote that he’ll rule Sept. 6, and the next date in the case would be Sept. 18, “if such is still necessary.” In the defense filing Monday, Trump’s attorneys argued that Manhattan prosecutors had placed “highly prejudicial emphasis on official-acts evidence,” including Trump’s social media posts and witness testimony about Oval Office meetings.
Prosecutors responded that they believed those arguments were “without merit” but that they wouldn’t oppose adjourning the sentencing for two weeks as the judge considers the matter. Trump was convicted May 30 on 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Trump has repeatedly denied that claim, saying at his June 27 debate with Biden, “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.”
Prosecutors said the Daniels payment was part of a broader scheme to buy the silence of people who might have gone public during the campaign with embarrassing stories alleging Trump had extramarital sex. Trump said they all were false. Cohen paid Daniels and was later reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses. Trump’s defense argued that the payments were indeed for legal work and so were correctly categorized. Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation, a fine or a conditional discharge which would require Trump to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment. Trump is the first ex-president convicted of a crime.
Source: Associated Press, NBC News
