Donald Trump has asked the judge in his New York hush money criminal case to delay his sentencing until after the November presidential election.
In a letter made public on Thursday, August 15, 2024, lawyers for the former President and current Republican nominee suggested that sentencing Trump as scheduled on September 18 — about seven weeks before Election Day — would amount to election interference.
The former President’s lawyers noted that the sentencing is currently set to begin after the start of early voting.
After numerous efforts to delay the case and winning a Supreme Court ruling that blew up the Trump trial schedules, Trump’s team said that it would be improper to go ahead with sentencing with voting underway.
Election Day is November 5, 2024, but many states allow voters to cast ballots early, with some set to start the process just a few days before or after Trump’s scheduled September 18, 2024, sentencing date.
‘Finally, setting aside naked election-interference objectives, there is no valid countervailing reason for the Court to keep the current sentencing date on the calendar,” Trump lawyers; Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote.
“There is no basis for continuing to rush,” they added.
Trump’s lawyers wrote that a delay would also allow Trump time to weigh next steps after the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, is expected to rule September 16, 2024, on the defense’s request to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July presidential immunity ruling.
Following the Supreme Court ruling that Presidents have some immunity from prosecution for official acts carried out while in office, Trump’s attorneys argued that the verdict should be thrown out because evidence shared during the trial should have been shielded from the jury.
The sentencing was originally set for July 11, but Judge Juan Merchan delayed it following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Merchan said that he would issue a ruling on the immunity claim two days before the September sentencing.
Trump’s legal team wrote in the letter sent to Merchan that the “timing illustrates just how unreasonable it is to have the potential for only a single day between a decision on first-impression Presidential immunity issues and an unprecedented and unwarranted sentencing.”
The lawyers wrote that by adjourning the sentencing until after that election, “the Court would reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings.”
Latest Request For Merchan To Step Aside Dismissed
Blanche and Bove sent the letter to Merchan after the judge rejected the defense’s latest request that he step aside from the case.
In the letter, Blanche and Bove reiterated the defense argument that the judge has a conflict of interest because his daughter works as a Democratic political consultant.
Merchan, who has said that he is confident in his ability to remain fair and impartial, did not immediately rule on the delay request.
Trump was convicted in May of falsifying his business’ records to conceal a 2016 deal to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with him. Prosecutors cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him during his first campaign.
Trump has pledged to appeal, but that cannot happen until he is sentenced.
In a previous letter, Merchan set September 18, 2024,for “the imposition of sentence or other proceedings as appropriate.”
Blanche and Bove argued in their letter seeking a delay that the quick turnaround from the scheduled immunity ruling on Sept. 16 to sentencing two days later is unfair to Trump.
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