Manhattan DA Agrees to Postpone Trump’s Sentencing Following SCOTUS Immunity Ruling
Judge Juan Merchan has agreed to postpone the sentencing of former President Donald Trump to September 18, following a Supreme Court decision finding that presidents are entitled to immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office.
White the court’s decision will most directly affect the Department of Justice’s election interference case against the former president, it is already having an effect on a case in which he was tried and convicted. In May, Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a hush-money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels in order to keep news of the affair private ahead of the 2016 election. On Monday, 10 days before Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, attorneys for the former president sent a letter to Judge Merchan requesting sentencing be postponed in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
It seems hard to argue that Trump’s personal payments to an adult film actress qualify as an official act of the presidency — especially since the payment took place before he had even won the election. But Trump’s lawyers believe the Supreme Court has given them room to demand that some of the evidence against Trump should be thrown out.
“The Supreme Court was very clear that for acts that fall within the outer perimeter of the president’s official responsibilities, acts that are presumptively immune from prosecution, that evidence of those acts cannot be used to try essentially private acts,” Trump attorney Will Scharf said Monday on CNN. He argued that because the high court barred the use of materials related to the president’s official conduct in prosecutions, “we believe that corrupts that trial, that that indicates that that jury verdict needs to be overturned and, at the very least, we deserve a new trial where those immune acts will not come into evidence.”
In their response on Tuesday, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office wrote that “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.” Judge Merchan approved the request later that day.
On Monday, Trump celebrated the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling on Truth Social. “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!” he wrote.
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, the president’s allies and campaign staff have been celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision with unrestrained glee. “It’s like Christmas,” a conservative attorney close to Trump told Rolling Stone on Monday. “Should we send John Roberts a muffin basket?” another person close to Trump joked.
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