Judge delays decision on tossing Trump’s hush money conviction
The judge overseeing Donald Trump's New York criminal trial delayed a key ruling Tuesday on whether the president-elect's conviction should be set aside, according to correspondence between the parties.
Trump’s team wants the case dismissed, and the prosecution says it needs time to evaluate next steps now that Trump has been elected for a second term. The court has granted them a week's delay to provide their positions, the clerk informed them in a court filing.
In a letter to state Judge Juan Merchan, prosecutors said they agreed with Trump's request for a stay to consider how to proceed given his new status as president-elect.
"The People agree that these are unprecedented circumstances and that the arguments raised by defense counsel in correspondence to the People on Friday require careful consideration to ensure that any further steps in this proceeding appropriately balance the competing interests of (1) a jury verdict of guilt following trial that has the presumption of regularity; and (2) the Office of the President," prosecutor Matthew Colangelo wrote in a letter to the judge.
“Accordingly, the People respectfully request that the Court adjourn the upcoming scheduled dates to afford the People time to assess these recent developments, and set November 19. 2024 as a deadline for the People to advise the Court regarding our view of appropriate steps," he added.
In response, Merchan's clerk said the joint request for a stay had been granted and ordered prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office to state their position by 10 a.m. on the 19th.
Trump had tentatively been scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 26, and it’s unclear when or whether the judge would proceed with the sentencing.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung celebrated the development in a statement, noting that Merchan has "now stayed all previously scheduled deadlines, including sentencing in this case."
He said Trump's election makes it "abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including this case, which should have never been filed."
Trump was convicted in May on 34 felony counts related to hush money payments made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. He has denied any wrongdoing.
The decision Merchan was expected to hand down Tuesday was on Trump's motion to overturn the conviction and dismiss the indictment on the grounds the case included some evidence that prosecutors should not have been able to use under the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity.
The Supreme Court ruling came down on July 1, days before Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced in New York.
The New York case was the only one of the four criminal cases brought against Trump after he left office in 2021 to go to trial, and the jury verdict marked the first time a former president had ever been convicted of a crime.
The Justice Department is winding down the two federal criminal cases against the former and future president. The Justice Department’s thinking on Trump’s federal cases emanates from a 2020 memo by the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which affirmed a Watergate-era conclusion that a prosecution of a sitting president would “unduly interfere in a direct or formal sense with the conduct of the presidency.”
The demise of those cases leaves one other pending prosecution against Trump: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' racketeering case alleging he and over a dozen co-conspirators illegally tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
That case has been on pause while Trump and some of his co-defendants seek to have an appeals court remove Willis from the case over allegations of conflict of interest. Given the status of the case, legal experts have told NBC News, any Trump trial would have to wait until he’s out of office in 2029 because of constitutional issues.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
