Donald Trump wins delay in hush money sentencing until after election

By Erik Larson and Patricia Hurtado

Donald Trump will not face sentencing in his New York hush money trial until after November’s presidential election, clearing a major legal and political obstacle for the Republican presidential nominee before voters head to the polls.

Trump’s sentencing will now occur on Nov. 26 — three weeks after Election Day — instead of Sept. 18 as originally planned, Acting State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan ruled, conceding that going forward could have an impact on voters. The judge also said he’d rule on Trump’s request to overturn the verdict on presidential immunity grounds by Nov. 12.

 

The decision prevents a historically unprecedented possibility — that a major party presidential candidate could be thrown in jail just weeks before the election — from coming to fruition. 

It also represented the latest in a string of legal victories for the former president, who entered the election season facing state, federal, and civil trials that threatened to focus attention on alleged misdeeds and remove him from the campaign trail. Instead, Friday’s ruling caps a series of favorable decisions and delays, providing a reprieve just days before Trump’s pivotal debate with Democrat Kamala Harris.

The Republican nominee celebrated the decision at a rally in North Carolina on Friday, saying he greatly appreciated Merchan’s ruling ahead of “the most important election in the history of our country.” Trump, who was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election, insisted he had done “nothing wrong.”

“It’s a witch hunt,” he sad. “It’s an attack by my political opponents in Washington.”

Trump’s angry denunciation of the trial wasn’t his only foray into legal matters Friday. Earlier in the day, the former president  appeared before a federal appeals court as his lawyer argued that he should get a new trial after losing a lawsuit from writer E. Jean Carroll accusing him of sexual abuse and defamation. 

But the more significant development was the postponement by Merchan, who wrote in the ruling Friday that he was pushing back sentencing to “avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching presidential election in which the defendant is a candidate.”

The decision presents further evidence that Trump’s delay strategy across his legal cases has paid off, said Richard Serafini, a criminal defense lawyer in Florida and former Justice Department attorney.

“Their single most effective defense strategy has been delay,” said Serafini. “Obviously, he still remains convicted on 34 felonies whether he’s been sentenced or not.” He added that sentencing delays like this aren’t unusual in cases where the defendant has a decent argument and the prosecution doesn’t object. 

The ruling came as the race between Trump and Harris remains a toss-up. The sentencing would have been another extraordinary moment in an election that already includes the attempted assassination of Trump and President Joe Biden’s stepping aside in favor of Harris. 

The postponement could weaken the argument by Harris that the election amounts to a choice between a former prosecutor and a convicted felon. 

Even so, the dueling New York court proceedings — in addition to a Washington, DC, hearing in a federal election interference case Thursday — put the focus back on Trump’s legal problems at the height of the presidential campaign.

Trump faces as long as four years behind bars, though a much shorter term — or just probation — is also a possibility. 

“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, whom Trump has frequently accused of bias, said, adding that the case has a “unique place in this nation’s history.” But Merchan also said it’s not unusual to delay sentencing in cases where both sides agree to do so. 

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, didn’t object to a delay and had left it for the judge to decide.

“A jury of 12 New Yorkers swiftly and unanimously convicted Donald Trump of 34 felony counts,” Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for Bragg. “The Manhattan DA’s office stands ready for sentencing on the new date set by the court.”

The judge said a delay would not have been necessary if the earlier July sentencing date had gone ahead. That date was pushed back as a result of additional arguments by Trump on presidential immunity. He raised the issue after the US Supreme Court ruled that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal charges over official conduct in office. Trump is also pursuing a separate bid to get a federal court to take over the case, though his attempts so far have been rejected.

After the appeals court hearing in the Carroll case, but before Merchan’s ruling, Trump criticized both the judge and Bragg at a press conference in Manhattan.

Trump has historically been able to turn his legal problems into a rallying cry, fundraising off each indictment as well as his May conviction. Since Harris has taken over the top of the Democratic ticket, however, Trump has trailed the vice president’s fundraising arm, raking in $130 million in August compared to Harris’ $361 million haul.