Former US President Donald Trump attends the second day of his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments linked to extramarital affairs, at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on April 16, 2024.
Mary Altaffer | AFP | Getty Images
A New York judge Friday indefinitely postponed President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his criminal hush money case.
Judge Juan Merchan in a court order also allowed Trump’s attorneys to file motions to dismiss the case, in which Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The ruling cancels, for now, the sentencing that was set for next Tuesday.
Prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office told Merchan this week that they supported pausing the sentencing date in order to give the defense lawyers time to argue that the case should be tossed entirely.
But the DA’s office also said they would oppose that dismissal bid.
Trump’s attorneys â including Todd Blanche, whom Trump recently tapped to be the No. 2 official at the Department of Justice â argued Tuesday that the case must be thrown out “immediately.”
“Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect,” Blanche and lawyer Emil Bove wrote in a letter to Merchan.
Blanche did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the judge’s latest order.
The hush money case centered on an effort by Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen to keep porn star Stormy Daniels from speaking out before the 2016 election about her alleged sexual affair with Trump years earlier. Cohen said Trump, after becoming president, reimbursed him for that $130,000 payment.
The jury convicted Trump on all counts in May. Trump was originally set to be sentenced in mid-July. But that step was repeatedly postponed in light of a Supreme Court ruling that former presidents enjoyed presumptive immunity for all official acts in office.
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