NYC judge delays decision on Trump’s immunity motion in hush money case
NEW YORK — A Manhattan judge has delayed a highly-anticipated decision in Donald Trump’s hush money case following his election victory at the request of the president-elect’s lawyers and the Manhattan district attorney, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan granted a joint motion to postpone his decision on Trump’s request to throw out the case and other deadlines until Nov. 19, according to email correspondence between his clerk and the parties uploaded to the case’s docket. The clerk said that is the deadline for prosecutors to advise Merchan of their view of the appropriate steps going forward.
Trump’s legal team on Friday asked the DA to agree to pause all upcoming proceedings “to provide time to review and consider a number of arguments based on the impact on this proceeding from the results of the Presidential election,” Trump’s forthcoming certification as President-elect on Jan. 6, and his inauguration on Jan. 20, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo informed the court in an email Sunday morning.
“The People agree that these are unprecedented circumstances,” Colangelo wrote.
Colangelo said the next steps required “careful consideration” to appropriately balance the competing interests of a jury’s verdicts finding Trump guilty of felonies and “the Office of the President.”
With all deadlines in the case put on pause, Trump’s sentencing, set for Nov. 26, remains in limbo. Merchan previously said he would sentence him on that date after ruling on the immunity motion “if necessary.”
In an email to Merchan following Colangelo’s on Sunday, Trump lawyer Emil Bove said, “There are strong reasons for the requested (pause), and eventual dismissal of the case in the interests of justice,” citing the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.
He said federal prosecutors from the Department of Justice had recently sought and obtained the same relief in Trump’s federal election subversion and classified documents cases, “and they are reportedly considering dismissing both of their prosecutions.”
“The [pause], and dismissal, are necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern,” Bove wrote.
Trump, 78, has asked Merchan to set aside the verdicts and dismiss the underlying indictment or grant him a new trial by arguing that the July immunity decision by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority — which granted presidents sweeping protections from criminal prosecution — barred the Manhattan DA’s office from showing evidence at trial relating to his “official acts.”
The decision also barred prosecutors from presenting evidence related to a president’s “official acts” to prove personal acts were illegal.
Among the “official acts” Trump argues were out-of-bounds were tweets from his presidential Twitter account about his former fixer Michael Cohen and testimony concerning private conversations with former White House staffers, including his communications director, Hope Hicks.
Prosecutors have opposed the effort, underscoring that the crimes Trump was found guilty of committing were related to his personal life and not his presidency. They have argued that even if the Supreme Court decision — which came down after Trump was found guilty — meant they improperly showed some evidence to the jury, the evidence of his guilt was, regardless, “overwhelming.”
An anonymous Manhattan jury delivered the guilty verdicts on May 30, finding Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to his secret payback to Cohen for silencing Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election. Prosecutors argued at trial that the hundreds of thousands of dollars Trump issued to Cohen in 2017 in Sharpie-signed checks were falsely logged as payment for “legal services” to cover up an illicit scheme to hide information from voters.
The historic case was the first of four brought against Trump after his first term in office and likely the only one to see a jury’s conclusion on the front end of his second term.
Outside of the winding-down federal cases, the racketeering case against Trump in Georgia, in which he’s accused of election subversion efforts alongside Rudy Giuliani and more than a dozen others, has stalled significantly, and legal experts say it’s unlikely he will go on trial in Fulton County in the next four years.
Trump is still trying to get his hush-money proceedings transferred to federal court — where he could more easily target an appeal toward the Supreme Court — having been denied two previous efforts. This summer, he appealed the latest rejection with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which is yet to hear oral arguments.
The Manhattan DA’s office and Trump’s lawyers declined to comment.
