A judge on Tuesday postponed Donald Trump’s sentencing in his New York hush money case as the former president seeks to have his conviction overturned following a Supreme Court ruling that granted him some immunity in a separate criminal case.
In a letter on Tuesday afternoon, Judge Juan Merchan said he would resolve Trump’s motion to set aside the verdict on Sept. 6 and postponed his sentencing, “if such is still necessary,” until Sept. 18.
Trump’s lawyers launched their effort to get the verdict tossed out just hours after the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling, which said Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for some official acts in his federal election interference case in Washington.
Trump’s lawyers argued on Monday that Manhattan prosecutors built their case in part based on evidence from Trump’s time in office, as The New York Times pointed out. Such evidence, they claimed, is therefore inadmissible.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said Tuesday that it doesn’t oppose a delay in sentencing while the court works through Trump’s motion.
Trump’s New York case was likely the only one of his four criminal cases to go to trial before the November election. He had been due for sentencing on July 11, four days before he is expected to be nominated for president at the Republican National Convention. Instead, Merchan has now set up a scenario in which Trump’s guilty verdict might be tossed just two months before the November election. How the judge might rule on the defense’s motion is unclear. Trump’s hush money conviction is largely centered on acts that he took as a presidential candidate, not as president. The presumptive GOP nominee cheered the postponement of his sentencing hearing on Tuesday. In a post on Truth Social, he falsely declared it a “total exoneration.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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