(AFP) – The judge in Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case on Friday delayed his sentencing indefinitely, in what the president-elect’s team called a “decisive win” as he prepares to return to the White House. Trump, who was to have been sentenced on November 26, fought to block that proceeding before he succeeds Joe Biden in January.
“The joint application for a stay of sentencing is granted to the extent that the November 26, 2024 date is adjourned,” Judge Juan Merchan said in an order in New York. Trump’s legal team cited a landmark July ruling from the Supreme Court that gives presidents sweeping immunity for official acts committed while in office as justification for their request.
“In a decisive win for President Trump, the hoax Manhattan Case is now fully stayed and sentencing is adjourned,” Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. “President Trump won a landslide victory as the American People have issued a mandate to return him to office and dispose of all remnants of the Witch Hunt cases.”
Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in May after a jury found he had fraudulently manipulated business records to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with a porn star ahead of the 2016 election. Prosecutors argued that concealing the alleged tryst was intended to help him win his first run for the White House.
Ahead of the election in November, Trump’s lawyers moved to have the case thrown out in light of the Supreme Court decision, a move which prosecutors firmly rejected. On Friday, Merchan granted Trump leave to seek to have the conviction thrown out, likely meaning several further hearings that could be delayed once Trump is sworn in.
New York state prosecutors previously acknowledged in correspondence with the court the “unprecedented circumstances,” and called for the competing interests of the jury’s verdict and Trump’s election to be balanced. The Republican president-elect has repeatedly derided the hush money case as a witch hunt.
Alongside the hush money case, Trump faces two active federal cases: one related to his effort to overturn the 2020 election and the other connected to classified documents he allegedly mishandled after leaving office. In the election interference case, Special Counsel Jack Smith has moved to vacate deadlines, delaying it indefinitely — but not yet dropping it outright, in line with long-standing Justice Department policy not to prosecute sitting US presidents.
A Trump-appointed federal judge already threw out the documents case, but Smith had sought to appeal that decision. As president, Trump would be able to intervene to end those cases.
– Gregory WALTON
© 2024 AFP
