Trump seeks to push back hush-money sentencing until after election

(The Center Square) – Former President Donald Trump wants more time to handle a judge's ruling on his motion to toss out his guilty verdicts before he faces sentencing in his New York hush-money case.

Judge Juan Merchan is set to rule on Trump's motion to set aside a jury's guilty verdicts on Sept. 16, just two days before Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 18.

"The Court should adjourn any sentencing in this case, though one should not be necessary because dismissal and vacatur of the jury's verdicts are required based on Presidential immunity, until after the 2024 Presidential election," Trump's attorneys wrote in a letter to the judge.

The letter was dated Aug. 14 but released publicly on Thursday.

The letter comes after Merchan denied – for the third time – a request from Trump's legal team to recuse himself in Trump's criminal case in New York. Trump's attorneys, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, wrote that a delay could address several issues.

"Setting aside naked election-interference objectives, there is no valid countervailing reason for the Court to keep the current sentencing date on the calendar," they wrote in the letter. "There is no basis for continuing to rush. Accordingly, we respectfully request that any sentencing, if one is needed, be adjourned until after the Presidential election."

In July, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents and former presidents have absolute immunity for actions related to core constitutional powers and presumptive immunity for official actions. The ruling, which was 6-3, said the president has no immunity for unofficial conduct. New York prosecutors previously said the high court's ruling doesn't affect his New York case.

On May 30, a jury convicted Trump on all counts in his hush-money case, a history-making verdict that could still shape the 2024 presidential election. Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records for disguising hush money payments to an adult film actress as legal costs ahead of the 2016 election.

Trump called the suit a political witch hunt devised by the Biden administration to punish political enemies.

Under New York state law, falsifying business records in the first degree is a Class E felony punishable by a maximum of four years in prison.