Trump became the first former US president to be convicted of criminal charges and was originally scheduled to be sentenced next week.
The judge in charge of Donald Trump’s hush-money case has granted a request to delay the former US president’s sentencing until at least September.
Tuesday’s decision follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered broad criminal immunity for presidents in their official acts.
Trump’s legal team had cited the Supreme Court decision in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan asking for a delay in sentencing, originally scheduled for July 11.
Lawyers representing Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told Merchan they needed time to build their case. conviction The 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal cash payments made to an adult actress should be dismissed in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.
Before Merchan’s ruling, prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump’s argument was “without merit” but agreed to delay sentencing.
Merchan said sentencing would be postponed until at least Sept. 18, less than two months before the Nov. 8 election.
Prosecutors had argued that Trump falsified business records to conceal his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual relationship with Trump in 2006.
They directly linked these payments to a larger scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election.
In their letter to Merchan, Trump’s lawyers argued that during the trial, prosecutors presented evidence implicating Trump’s official acts as president, including social media posts he made and conversations he had while in the White House.
That evidence should have been protected by presidential immunity, the lawyers said, under the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday.
THE decision A majority of the nine-member Supreme Court’s six-justice bench said presidents enjoy “absolute immunity” from criminal liability for any act that falls within their “fundamental constitutional powers.” Evidence related to those official acts also cannot be introduced at trial, the majority said.
However, the decision, which was challenged by the court’s three liberal justices, says presidents can still be prosecuted for acts that fall outside those powers. The exact limits remain unclear.
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the decision opened the door to “nightmare scenarios,” including possible immunity for the assassination of a political rival.
“In every exercise of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” she wrote.
Political implications
The Supreme Court’s decision bodes well for Trump, who faces three additional criminal trials.
It is likely the most disruptive case yet for the legal argument at the heart of a federal case related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election after his loss to President Joe Biden.
It could also have implications for a state lawsuit in Georgia related to efforts to pressure officials to change the 2020 vote count, as well as a second federal lawsuit related to Trump allegedly hiding and hoarding classified White House documents at his Florida estate.
The New York trial, however, was the only one scheduled to end before the election. While the initial guilty verdict did not show a major shift in support for Trump, analysts have argued that a harsh sentence could turn off some potential Trump voters.
Merchan’s decision comes five days after Biden delivered a disappointing performance during the first presidential debate against Trump, prompting the Democrat’s campaign to limit the damage while highlighting concerns about the 81-year-old’s age.
On Tuesday, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that one in three Democrats think Biden should end his re-election campaign after his debate performance. Still, the poll found that no major elected Democrat would do better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup with Trump.
Biden was reportedly scheduled to meet with Democratic governors on Wednesday to try to allay their concerns.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre also said Biden will give his first post-debate interview to ABC News on Friday and hold a news conference at a NATO conference next week.
She reiterated that Biden has no plans to drop out of the race.
