New York prosecutors told the judge who presided over Donald Trump's hush money trial Tuesday that his sentencing should be postponed while the president-elect's lawyers file further legal arguments asking that the case be dismissed.
Judge Juan Merchan would need to approve the proposal from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office for it to become official. Merchan has agreed to previous requests from prosecutors seeking delays.
Prosecutors said they would challenge Trump’s efforts to dismiss the case but agreed that they are in uncharted territory when it comes to sentencing a president and acknowledged that his sentencing might need to take place after his term in office.
“The People deeply respect the Office of the President, are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency, and acknowledge that Defendant’s inauguration will raise unprecedented legal questions. We also deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system,” their filing said.
“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 filing says.
Prosecutors said they would be agreeable to pausing the sentencing for “two reasons.”
“First, as a practical matter, Defendant’s stated plan to pursue immediate dismissal and file interlocutory appeals will likely lead to a stay of proceedings in any event; staying proceedings now until this Court’s resolution of the motion to dismiss would thus avoid unnecessary litigation. Second, proceeding to sentencing now would not avoid the new immunity question that Defendant intends to raise,” the filing said.
The new immunity question appears to be an argument by Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove in a letter to Bragg made public Tuesday that presidents-elect are entitled to full presidential immunity.
"There is no material difference between President Trump's current status after his overwhelming victory in the national election and that of a sitting President following inauguration," reads the letter from the Trump attorneys, both of whom Trump has named for top jobs at the Justice Department.
Their letter also said it would be against "the interests of justice" for Trump to have the sentencing hanging over his head while he is in office. "Such timing is impermissible" because it could lead to an "extended proceeding" that "alone may render" the president "unduly cautious in the discharge of his official duties," the letter said.
Trump communications director Steven Cheung called Bragg's filing “a total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American People who elected him in a landslide. The Manhattan DA has conceded that this Witch Hunt cannot continue. The lawless case is now stayed, and President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all.”
Merchan was tentatively scheduled to sentence Trump later this month on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, but that outcome was thrown into doubt last week after the DA's office asked him to stay the proceedings while it considered the impact of Trump's election victory on the case.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said the DA’s office was making the request following "a number of arguments" from Trump's legal team that it would be improper to move ahead.
“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,” Colangelo wrote in a letter to Merchan on Nov. 10.
That was two days before Merchan had been set to issue his ruling on whether the verdict should be overturned based on the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity this year. A ruling against Trump would have paved the way for Merchan to proceed with his sentencing, which was tentatively scheduled for Nov. 26.
Merchan, however, signed off on both parties' request for a stay and gave the DA's office until Tuesday to submit a filing on its "view of appropriate steps going forward."
The 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.
Trump was charged last year with having falsified business records to cover up his reimbursement of a hush money payment his then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid to porn star Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 election.
Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, an allegation he has denied.
Trump was convicted on all counts in May.
Some of the evidence at trial included testimony from former Trump White House aides Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout, as well as some of Trump’s tweets bashing Cohen, which prosecutors said was part of a pressure campaign to keep him quiet.
Lawyers for Trump contended it was a mistake for any of that evidence to be presented to the jury, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s subsequent July 1 ruling expanding the limits of presidential immunity. They said that the evidence tainted the jury and that as a result the conviction and the charges should be dismissed.
Prosecutors from Bragg’s office argued in a court filing that the evidence was not affected by the high court’s decision and that even if it was, “there would still need be no basis for disturbing the verdict because of the other overwhelming evidence of defendant’s guilt.”
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case, which he claimed was politically motivated because Bragg is a Democrat. He has also accused Bragg, who is Black, of being a “racist” while calling Merchan “corrupt” and “incompetent.”
The Justice Department is winding down the two federal criminal cases against Trump.
The other pending criminal case is Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis’ sprawling racketeering case alleging Trump and over a dozen co-conspirators illegally tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
That case has been paused while Trump and some of his co-defendants seek to have an appeals court remove Willis from the case over allegations of a conflict of interest. Trump's lawyers have contended that even if she is allowed to remain on the case, any trial would have to wait until Trump is out of office in 2029 because of constitutional issues.
