Judge warns Trump of potential jail time for violating gag order
Artist: Jane Rosenberg
Former President Donald Trump will not be sentenced in his New York criminal hush money case until after the Nov. 5 presidential election, a judge ruled Friday.
The sentencing date, which was set for Sept. 18, will instead take place on Nov. 26, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan ruled.
And Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, will not be sentenced at all if the court grants his request to dismiss the case in light of a Supreme Court ruling expanding the scope of presidential immunity.
Merchan in his four-page ruling said he will rule on Trump’s bid to vacate the jury’s guilty verdict on Nov. 12. Trump will be sentenced “if necessary” two weeks later.
“This matter is one that stands alone, in a unique place in this Nation’s history,” the judge wrote.
The case centers on a $130,000 payment made by Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen to keep porn star Stormy Daniels from speaking ahead of the 2016 presidential election about an alleged one-night stand with Trump years earlier. Trump reimbursed Cohen in monthly installments after he won the election.
Trump in mid-July had asked Merchan to dismiss the case and vacate the guilty verdicts against him, in light of a Supreme Court ruling that granted former presidents “presumptive immunity” for their official acts in office.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office replied that that ruling was irrelevant to the hush money case, and wouldn’t support erasing the jury’s verdict even if it did apply.
The Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling had already spurred Merchan to delay Trump’s sentencing, which was originally scheduled for July 11, by more than two months.
Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly sought to get Merchan to recuse himself from the case. They accused him of political bias before and during the trial, in large part due to his adult daughter’s work for a political firm whose clients include high-profile Democrats such as President Joe Biden.
Merchan rejected two recusal requests ahead of the trial, which began in mid-April and ended in late May with Trump’s conviction on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records.
On Aug. 13, Merchan shot down Trump’s third recusal bid, describing one of his arguments — an attack on the still-present gag order restricting some of Trump’s statements related to the case — as “nothing more than an attempt to air grievances against this Court’s rulings.”
One day later, Trump’s team urged Merchan to push the sentencing date until after the Nov. 5 election. “Sentencing is currently scheduled to occur after the commencement of early voting in the Presidential election,” they noted in a court filing.
Delaying the sentencing date, they argued, would “reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings.”
Trump has also tried, unsuccessfully, to move the hush money case to federal court. Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday asked a federal appeals court to pause a U.S. District Court order sending the case back to New York state court.
Bragg’s office told the appeals court in a letter Thursday that Merchan had indicated he would share his decision Friday on whether or not to delay Trump’s sentencing date.
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