Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he leaves the courthouse after a jury found him guilty of all 34 crimes in his criminal trial in the New York State Supreme Court on May 30, 2024.
Justin Lane | Via Reuters
A New York judge on Tuesday pushed back Donald Trump’s sentencing date in his hush money trial by more than two months after the former president’s lawyers filed a motion to challenge his conviction.
If Trump’s criminal sentencing does take place, it will now take place on September 18th, about seven weeks before the November 5th presidential election.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. However, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan reversed that date in Tuesday’s order, while also granting a request from Trump’s lawyers to file a motion to vacate his conviction.
This request comes amid the Supreme Court’s controversial decision on Monday that former presidents are entitled to “presumptive immunity” for all official acts they took while in office.
Trump’s lawyers now have until July 10 to file a motion to overturn the hush money ruling. Prosecutors who did not object to Trump’s offer to postpone the sentencing date have until July 24 to file their response.
Merchan said he would make a decision on the matter by September 6. Trump’s sentencing will take place on September 18 at 10 a.m. ET “if that is still necessary,” Merchan ruled.
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The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision immediately threatened to undermine some of the numerous ongoing criminal cases against Trump.
The hush money case, likely to be the only one against Trump to go to trial before the Nov. 5 presidential election, ended May 30 with Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The case centered on a $130,000 payment just before the 2016 election to porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had sex with Trump while he was married years earlier. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who made the payment, received a refund from Trump after he became president.
In a letter to Merchan on Monday, Trump’s lawyers requested a deadline of July 10 to file a legal memo in support of their request to overturn the conviction.
And “due to the complexity of the issues presented,” they added, “President Trump does not object to a postponement of the July 11, 2024 sentencing date to allow sufficient time for a full briefing, oral arguments and a decision.”
The lawyers argued in the letter that after the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, certain evidence that prosecutors presented in court “should never have been presented to the jury” because it involved official actions of the president. Her letter referenced the then-president’s social media posts and public statements.
“The rulings in this case violate the doctrine of presidential immunity and pose a serious risk of ‘executive power cannibalizing itself,'” they wrote, quoting Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion.
“Upon further information on these issues beginning July 10, 2024, it will be clear that the outcome of the trial cannot stand,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
Prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in their own letter to Merchan on Tuesday that they believe Trump’s arguments are without merit.
But “we do not deny his request for admission to the record and his putative request to postpone sentencing pending determination of his request,” prosecutors wrote.
The Supreme Court’s ruling came as part of a separate criminal case charging Trump with unlawful conspiracy to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
That case sat on hold for months while Trump and special counsel Jack Smith debated whether former presidents are immune from prosecution for their actions in office.
Federal district court and federal appeals court judges in Washington, DC had rejected Trump’s claim to “absolute immunity” for all official acts.
But the Supreme Court’s six-member conservative majority overturned those decisions, ruling on Monday that ex-presidents enjoy “at least presumptive immunity from prosecution” for these actions.
That immunity applies “unless the government can demonstrate that applying a criminal prohibition to that act does not create a ‘threat of interference with the authority and functions of the executive branch,'” Roberts wrote.
The majority also appeared to limit the evidence that can be used in prosecuting 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 presidential immunity, Roberts wrote. This would “increase the likelihood that the president’s official decision-making will be distorted.”
The decision sparked a vehement reaction from the court’s three liberal justices, including Sonia Sotomayor, who expressed “fear for our democracy” in a scathing dissent.
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2024-07-02 19:51:30
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