President-elect Donald Trump on Monday moved to halt this week’s sentencing in his hush money case while he appeals a judge’s decision that upheld the historic verdict and put him on course to be the first president to take office convicted of felony crimes.
Trump’s lawyers said they will ask a New York appeals court to reverse Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan’s ruling last week, which set the case for sentencing on Friday — a little more than a week before his inauguration.
Merchan rejected Trump’s bid to throw out the May 30 verdict because of his impending return to the White House. Trump’s lawyers said they will also appeal a prior decision in which the judge refused to dismiss the case on presidential immunity grounds.
In his decision last week, the judge signaled he is not likely to sentence Trump, a Republican, to any punishment for his historic conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Trump has said that it “would be the end of the Presidency as we know it” if the ruling is allowed to stand.
Trump’s lawyers argued Monday that their appeal to the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court should trigger what’s known as an automatic stay, or pause, in the proceedings. If that doesn’t happen, they said, Merchan should step in and halt Friday’s sentencing.
They asked Merchan to inform them by Monday afternoon of his decision “to allow sufficient time for President Trump to seek an emergency appellate review.”
“Today, President Trump’s legal team moved to stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said. “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the state constitution of New York, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed.”
A message seeking comment was left for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case.
Any delay in sentencing Trump could run out the clock on closing the case before his second term begins Jan. 20. As president, he will again be immune from criminal proceedings, making it unlikely he can be sentenced while in office. If sentencing doesn’t happen before Trump is sworn in, waiting until he leaves office in 2029 “may become the only viable option,” Merchan said last week.
While Trump asserted that presidential immunity and his looming second term necessitated nixing the verdict, Merchan wrote in his Jan. 3 ruling that only “bringing finality to this matter” by sentencing Trump would serve the interests of justice.
The judge wrote that sentencing Trump to what’s known as an unconditional discharge — closing the case without jail time, a fine or probation — “appears to be the most viable solution.”
Acknowledging the demands of the transition process, Merchan had given Trump the option to attend in person or appear virtually by video. Whenever he is sentenced, Trump will have an opportunity to speak, as will his lawyers and prosecutors. Once he is sentenced, he can appeal the verdict, as he has vowed to do.
The charges involved an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with him years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong.
The case centered on how Trump accounted for reimbursing his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who had made the payment to Daniels. The conviction carried the possibility of punishment ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.
Cohen, a key prosecution witness who had previously called for Trump to be put in prison, said that “based upon all of the intervening circumstances” Merchan’s decision to sentence Trump without punishment “is both judicious and appropriate.”
Trump’s sentencing initially was set for last July 11, then postponed twice at the defense’s request. After Trump’s Nov. 5 election, Merchan delayed the sentencing again so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.
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