Trump tries to push back sentencing in hush money case until after election

Donald Trump’s lawyers on Thursday urged the judge overseeing his Manhattan criminal hush money case to delay the former president’s sentencing until after November’s presidential election.

The request came one day after Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan rejected Trump’s latest demand that the judge step aside from the case, clearing the way for the Republican presidential candidate to learn his fate as soon as Sept. 18.

The lawyers argued for the sentencing to be paused to allow Trump time to appeal if Merchan, in a decision expected by Sept. 16, declines to toss the conviction based on the US Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling immunizing presidents for “official acts” taken in office. 

Trump’s attorneys claim the trial was “tainted” by evidence from the business mogul’s time in the White House, including the then-president admitting that he was relieved that porn star Stormy Daniels’ account of having sex with him while he was married only came out after the 2016 election.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has fired back that the high court’s ruling has “no bearing” on the case because Trump concealing a payoff to a porn star by lying on company records from the Oval Office is not an “official” presidential act.

Typically, defendants in New York state trials are not allowed to appeal their convictions until after they are sentenced. But Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argued Thursday that the Supreme Court’s ruling — which found that presidential immunity is “appealable before trial” — effectively bars Merchan from sentencing Trump until appeals courts resolve the immunity issue “fully and finally.”

The letter rehashes familiar Trump talking points, such as claiming that the case is “election interference.” It also argues that delaying the sentencing until after the election will “mitigate” allegations — which a state ethics panel has called unfounded — that Merchan cannot be fair and impartial due to his daughter’s past consulting work for Democrats.

“Setting aside naked election-interference objectives, there is no valid countervailing reason for the court to keep the current sentencing date on the calendar,” Blanche and Bove wrote. 

A jury of 12 Manhattanites convicted Trump, 78, in May of falsifying business records by concealing a $130,000 payout to Daniels as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election by buying up and burying stories that could have become sex scandals.

Trump faces up to four years in prison, but experts say that he’s more likely to get probation or community service.

The Manhattan DA’s office declined to comment on Thursday.