Judge Denies Trump Request To Stop Sentencing
Donald Trump will not be able to stop his sentencing hearing on Friday, according to the judge who oversaw the president-elect’s criminal hush money case.
In an order issued Monday, Judge Juan Merchan said Trump’s request to delay the hearing was unsuccessful because it is a “repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past.”
Merchan has already indicated he would not sentence the incoming president to prison time for his 34-count felony conviction, lawyers for Trump now want to nix the sentencing hearing while an appeal is underway.
When he is sentenced, he will formally be considered a convicted felon. He will be inaugurated on Jan. 20.
Trump’s attorneys, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, said they intend to formally file their appeal Monday and that they will contest two previous rulings from the judge that rejected bids to dismiss the case on immunity grounds.
In a request filed in New York on Sunday, the attorneys argued that the Constitution and protections already afforded to Trump under the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling last year mean there can be no sentencing while he actively appeals.
In a dig at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Blanche and Bove wrote Monday that the case should be dismissed and the sentencing immediately halted because the entire matter was “flawed from the very beginning, [and] centered around the wrongful actions and false claims of a disgraced, disbarred serial-liar attorney” eager to violate Trump’s due process rights.
Bragg filed a motion opposing Trump’s request on Monday.
The trial ended over seven months ago, Bragg wrote, and all post-trial motions have been adjudicated. As for sentencing, the district attorney urged that “the Court has already stated its intent to impose the lowest possible sentence authorized by law: an unconditional discharge.”
“There is no risk here of an ‘extended proceeding’ that impairs the discharge of defendant’s official duties — duties he does not possess before January 20, 2025,” Bragg wrote.
Further, Trump’s conduct underpinning the charges has been disputed at length, and it was determined already that it was not official.
“And, until his inauguration on January 20, 2025, defendant is simply not engaged in any official presidential functions that would support a claim of immunity from ordinary criminal process. Because the charges on which defendant was convicted are wholly unrelated to his official conduct, and because defendant relies on a purported ‘President-elect’ immunity doctrine that does not exist, his invocation of immunity does not entitle him to an automatic stay pending appeal,” Bragg wrote.
When New York Judge Juan Merchan issued a ruling on Dec. 16 flatly rejecting Trump’s presidential immunity arguments as grounds for dismissal, he explained his reasoning: The evidence presented and used to convict Trump related “entirely to unofficial conduct,” and the Supreme Court had left the door open to prosecution for unofficial acts.
In May, a jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up an alleged tryst he had with adult film actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
Trial evidence and testimony from Trump’s onetime fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen, demonstrated how Cohen helped coordinate the cover-up of a $130,000 payment for Daniels that was meant to keep the news from spilling out into the public.
Even after his conviction, Trump has continued to claim he is not guilty.
When Merchan refused to dismiss the case in December, he wrote that falsifying business records “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch.”
In his order for Trump to appear at sentencing, the judge said Trump should be permitted to “avail himself of every available appeal,” but the sentencing hearing would move ahead nonetheless. The only “viable” course forward would be to issue a sentence under the terms of “unconditional discharge,” Merchan wrote.
This type of sentence, which imposes no fines or prison time, is rare, but when applied, it is typically because there is no practical punishment available.
Trump’s lawyers asked for a response from the judge by 2 p.m. on Monday. If there is none, his lawyers said they will file a request for an emergency appellate review.
In addition to vacating the sentencing hearing scheduled to take place this week, they have also asked that all further deadlines in the case be “fully and finally resolved.”
Trump was meant to be sentenced in the criminal hush money case in July. That sentencing hearing was waylaid by Merchan multiple times. He postponed sentencing so the Supreme Court could consider his immunity arguments and then again because of demands from Trump’s presidential campaign.
When reached for comment Monday, a spokesperson for Trump called the case a “witch hunt,” as Trump has done with any legal matter in which he is a defendant.
“The American People elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate that demands an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and all of the remaining Witch Hunts. We look forward to uniting our country in the new administration as President Trump makes America great again,” spokesman Steven Cheung said.
Trump’s “mandate” was not exactly as sweeping as he routinely suggests. It was, in fact, a narrow popular victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. As noted by The New York Times, it was one of the smallest margins of victory since the 19th century.
