- Judge Juan Merchán postponed sentencing after Supreme Court ruling
- Trump’s team wants to postpone it until after the election
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are seeking to postpone his sentencing in the Stormy Daniels hush hush trial until after the election, after securing an earlier pardon following a Supreme Court ruling.
Now, Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, is pleading in a letter to Judge Juan Merchán for a delay, citing the risk of “election interference.”
In a new letter to the judge, Blanche writes that she wants the sentence to be postponed until after the presidential elections, where she invokes new developments in the 2024 elections.
From Blanche letter He also mentions the failed attempt to get Merchan to recuse herself from the case because of her daughter’s work for a company that runs digital advertising campaigns for Democrats.
She criticized Kamala Harris’s new running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, for “mistakenly referring to this case in a public speech as the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee.” Harris, a former district attorney and California attorney general, has made pursuing “predators” and other suspects a key part of her campaign pitch since taking office under President Joe Biden.
Trump wants to prevent District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office from filing a sentencing request while the court considers Trump’s motion on presidential immunity, following the Supreme Court’s ruling on the complex issue.
Merchan is scheduled to rule on the immunity issue on Sept. 16, and Trump’s team wants him to delay sentencing until any appeal is allowed to proceed. He has previously said the Sept. 18 sentencing date is “not changing.”
Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers said it would be “election interference” to go ahead with the Sept. 18 sentencing in his Stormy Daniels hush money case
John Yoo, former Justice Department official under George W. Bush He told Fox News In fact, Merchan could send Trump to jail in the middle of the campaign, after a Manhattan jury convicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
“Judge Merchan has ruled against Donald Trump at every opportunity he’s had,” Yoo said. “He could have exercised his discretion here to change the sentencing date. But instead he actually moved it closer to the start of mail-in voting in my home state of Pennsylvania,” a key battleground where Harris has held a narrow lead in recent polls.
“Seriously, can you imagine what would happen if Judge Merchan sentenced Donald Trump to prison, even though this is his first time committing a non-violent crime?” Yoo said. “What if Judge Merchan went even crazier and said Donald Trump can’t even get out of jail while his case is on appeal? He has the power to order Donald Trump sent to prison immediately, although I’m guessing he wouldn’t do that.”
New York Judge Juan Merchan has already delayed sentencing following a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity
Many legal experts predicted before and after Trump’s conviction that the nonviolent first-time offender would likely not go to prison.
But Merchan has repeatedly fined Trump after finding he violated a gag order in the case.
After numerous efforts to delay the case and secure a Supreme Court ruling that upended Trump’s trial schedule, Trump’s team says it would be inappropriate to move forward with sentencing while the vote is underway.
“Finally, leaving aside the goals of blatant election interference,” they wrote, “there is no valid reason for the Court to keep the current sentencing date on the calendar. There is no basis for further haste,” Blanche wrote.
