In May, a Manhattan jury voted to convict Donald Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to payments made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her election-year silence about an alleged affair. The conclusion of the hush-money trial left the slim possibility of potential jail time looming over Trump as he sought to win a second term in the White House. But the chances of the now-president-elect being sentenced prior to his January inauguration grew even more remote this week as the judge presiding over the case officially took his sentencing hearing off the calendar.
On Friday, Judge Juan Merchan announced that he would be postponing Trump’s sentencing indefinitely in order to address motions from both sides in the case. Trump’s sentencing hearing was scheduled for November 26 after several initial delays.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, whose team prosecuted the case against Trump, indicated Tuesday that he would not oppose postponing Trump’s hearing. In a letter to Merchan, Bragg said his office intends to challenge Trump’s legal team’s planned motion to dismiss the case outright but acknowledged that the calendar should be cleared to allow for its litigation and requested a December 9 deadline to respond. And Bragg raised the possibility of halting proceedings until Trump has served his term, a move that would freeze the case until 2029.
“Given the need to balance competing constitutional interests, consideration must be given to various non-dismissal options that may address any concerns raised by the pendency of a post-trial criminal proceeding during the presidency, such as deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term,” the letter read.
On Wednesday, Trump’s attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove submitted their own letter to Merchan calling Bragg’s case “politically-motivated and fatally flawed” and saying the matter should be quickly dismissed. The attorneys requested a December 20 deadline for them to file their motion to dismiss.
“Immediate dismissal of this case is mandated by the federal Constitution, the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, and the interests of justice, in order to facilitate the orderly transition of Executive power following President Trump’s overwhelming victory in the 2024 Presidential election,” they write.
On Tuesday, Merchan was slated to issue his ruling on a request from Trump’s legal team to consider the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s seismic decision on presidential immunity on his sentencing and the case as a whole. Per the 6-3 ruling, which was split along ideological lines, past and future presidents cannot be prosecuted over official acts taken while in office. Merchan was initially supposed to issue his ruling last week, but postponed his decision after attorneys on both sides requested additional time to determine how to proceed following Trump’s Election Day victory.
The effects of the Supreme Court’s decision were immediate, prompting the first of several delays of Trump’s sentencing in the hush-money case. The federal government’s cases against Trump were also stymied by the Court’s decision. Judge Aileen Cannon, who had been friendly toward Trump all along, dismissed the Justice Department’s classified-documents case altogether. Special counsel Jack Smith was also forced to revise his office’s election-subversion indictment, stripping that case of any allegation that could constitute an official act. Though Smith initially pushed to keep the two cases alive, he has indicated his plans to wind down the prosecutions in light of Trump’s election. It’s a long-standing policy of the Justice Department that the agency refrains from prosecuting a sitting president.
