In a major reprieve for former President Donald Trump, sentencing for his hush-money convictions was postponed Tuesday until at least September as the judge agreed to weigh the possible impact of a new Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
Trump had been scheduled to face sentencing July 11, just before the Republicans’ nominating convention, on his New York convictions on felony charges of falsifying business records. He denies any wrongdoing.
The postponement sets the sentencing for Sept. 18 at the earliest — if it happens at all, since Trump’s lawyers are arguing that the Supreme Court ruling merits not only delaying the sentencing but tossing out his conviction.
“The impact of the Immunity Ruling is a loud and clear signal for Justice in the United States,” Trump posted on his Truth Social media site after the sentencing was delayed.
Using all capital letters, he claimed the Supreme Court’s decision netted him “total exoneration” in this and other criminal cases he faces.
There was no immediate comment on the sentencing postponement from Manhattan prosecutors, who brought the hush-money case.
Though the Sept. 18 date is well after this month’s Republican National Convention, where Trump is set formally to accept the party’s nomination for president in this year’s race, it is far closer to Election Day, which could put the issue top-of-mind for voters just as they seriously tune in to the race. Because of absentee voting timelines in certain states, some voters may already have cast ballots before anyone knows whether the former president will have to spend time in jail or on home confinement.
The delay caps a string of political and legal wins for Trump in recent days, including the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling and a debate widely seen as a disaster for Democratic President Joe Biden.
The immunity decision all but closed the door on the possibility that Trump could face trial in his 2020 election interference case in Washington before this November’s vote. The timeline in itself is a victory for the former president, who has sought to delay his four criminal cases past the balloting.
An appeals court recently paused a separate election interference case against Trump, in Georgia; no trial date has been set. His federal classified documents case in Florida remains bogged down by pretrial disputes that have resulted in an indefinite cancellation of the trial date.
Monday’s Supreme Court ruling granted broad immunity protections to presidents, while also restricting prosecutors from citing any official acts as evidence in trying to prove a president’s unofficial actions violated the law.
The high court held that former presidents are absolutely immune from prosecution for actions that fall within their core constitutional duties, such as interacting with the Justice Department, and at least presumptively immune for all other official acts. The justices left intact the longstanding principle that no immunity exists for purely personal acts.
It’s not clear how the decision will affect the New York hush-money case.
Its underpinnings involved allegations that a pre-presidency Trump participated in a scheme to stifle sex stories that he feared would be damaging to his 2016 campaign. But the actual charges had to do with payments made in 2017 to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who had shelled out hush money on Trump’s behalf. Trump was president when he signed relevant checks to Cohen.
Trump’s lawyers sought unsuccessfully before the trial to keep out certain evidence that they said concerned official acts, including social media posts he made as president.
Merchan said in April it would be “hard to convince me that something that he tweeted out to millions of people voluntarily cannot be used in court when it’s not being presented as a crime. It’s just being used as an act, something he did.”
When Trump vied unsuccessfully last year to get the hush-money case moved from state court to federal court, US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the former president’s claim that allegations in the hush-money indictment involved official duties.
“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely personal item of the president — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” Hellerstein wrote last year.
Hours after Monday’s Supreme Court ruling, Trump’s attorney requested that New York Judge Juan Merchan set aside the jury’s guilty verdict and delay the sentencing to consider how the high court’s ruling could affect the hush-money case. In response, the district attorney’s office wrote that prosecutors did not oppose Trump’s request.
“Although we believe defendant’s arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” wrote Joshua Steinglass, one of the assistant district attorneys who tried the case against the former president.
Merchan wrote that he’ll rule Sept. 6, and the next date in the case would be Sept. 18, “if such is still necessary.”
In the defense filing Monday, Trump’s attorneys argued that Manhattan prosecutors had placed “highly prejudicial emphasis on official-acts evidence,” including Trump’s social media posts and witness testimony about Oval Office meetings.
Prosecutors responded that they believed those arguments were “without merit” but that they wouldn’t oppose adjourning the sentencing for two weeks as the judge considers the matter.
Trump was convicted May 30 on 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.
Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Trump has repeatedly denied that claim, saying at his June 27 debate with Biden: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.”
Cohen paid Daniels and was later reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses.
Trump’s defense argued that the payments were indeed for legal work and so were correctly categorized.
Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation, a fine or a conditional discharge which would require Trump to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment. Trump is the first ex-president convicted of a crime.
HUSH-MONEY CASE
While paying hush money is not inherently illegal, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecutors accused Trump of instructing his employees to lie on company paperwork to hide the nature of the reimbursement.
The district attorney’s case framed the hush-money payment as part of a broader conspiracy by Trump and his allies to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors presented evidence detailing how The National Enquirer, the supermarket tabloid, played a central role in the conspiracy with its catch-and-kill strategy of buying and burying negative stories about Trump and publishing sensational and false ones about his rivals.
“After further briefing on these issues beginning on July 10, 2024, it will be manifest that the trial result cannot stand,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in their letter on Monday.
Yet the effort to set aside the conviction might be a long shot. Much of the evidence in the case concerned Trump’s conduct during the campaign and the transition after he was elected but before he was sworn in. Although he was in the White House while signing the reimbursement checks to Cohen, Bragg has argued that doing so was a personal act.
At least one federal judge has already agreed with Bragg. Before the trial, Trump tried to move the case to federal court, arguing that the evidence centered on his official acts as president. But a judge rejected that argument.
“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely personal item of the president — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” the judge, Alvin Hellerstein, wrote in an opinion last year. “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties.”
Even the Supreme Court ruling on Monday appeared in some measure to discourage Trump’s effort to throw out the jury’s verdict. In a footnote, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that a “prosecutor may point to the public record” to illustrate an argument, a provision that appeared to sweep in much of the evidence that Trump wants thrown out, including his tweets, public statements and personal financial disclosure form.
One aspect of the prosecution’s evidence that might be more vulnerable is testimony from former White House employees recounting meetings and conversations with Trump.
Prosecutors called Madeleine Westerhout, a former director of Oval Office operations, who testified about scheduling a February 2017 visit between Trump and Cohen, a meeting where Cohen says they discussed reimbursement for the hush-money payment.
Prosecutors also questioned Hope Hicks, Trump’s former spokesperson, who testified about her discussion in the White House with Trump after The Wall Street Journal reported in 2018 about the hush-money deal with Daniels.
“Mr. Trump’s opinion was it was better to be dealing with it now, and that it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election,” Hicks recalled on the stand, testimony that Steinglass referred to during his closing argument as “devastating.”
But it’s unclear whether that conversation could constitute an official act, simply by virtue of where it occurred. And during the trial, Merchan appeared skeptical of the defense’s argument that the prosecution should not question Hicks about that conversation.
“The objection is noted,” he told Trump’s lawyer, before allowing the testimony to proceed.
Information for this article was contributed by Jake Offenhartz, Jennifer Peltz, Michael R. Sisak, Jill Colvin and Eric Tucker of The Associated Press and by Ben Protess, William K. Rashbaum, Kate Christobek and Wesley Parnell of The New York Times.
FILE – Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump enters at a campaign event, June 18, 2024, in Racine, Wis. Former President Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case has been postponed until Sept. 18. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps, File) FILE – Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks to the media after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, May 30, 2024, in New York. Bragg won’t oppose delaying former President Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case after the Supreme Court immunity ruling. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
