President-elect Donald Trump's scheduled sentencing in his Manhattan criminal hush-money case is likely to be postponed. The Manhattan district attorney said Tuesday that the postponement would give them time to litigate the President-elect's expected motion to dismiss the case.
In a letter to Judge Juan Merchan, the district attorney's office acknowledged that Trump is not likely to be sentenced "until after the end of after the end of Defendant's upcoming presidential term."
However, the office also argued that the conviction against the President-elect should not be dismissed.
"No current law establishes that a president's temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a post-trial criminal proceeding that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution and that is based on official conduct for which the defendant is also not immune," the district attorney's office wrote, according to CNN.
Just a year ago, Trump was grappling with four separate indictments. Now, as he returns to the White House after his landmark win against Democratic rival Kamala Harris, his legal team's strategy of delaying all his cases until after the 2024 election has proven remarkably effective.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a scheme to influence the 2016 election. Prosecutors argued that Trump had falsely categorized payments made to his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, intended to silence her claims of an affair, as "legal expenses." However, Trump denied the claims of any such affair with Daniels.
Trump's original sentencing date was set for July 10, but it was delayed after the Supreme Court ruling on July 1, which granted sitting presidents broad immunity for actions taken while in office.
Following the ruling, Trump's legal team requested that Judge Merchan postpone his sentencing. Additionally, Trump sought to challenge his conviction, citing the Supreme Court's decision as a basis for his argument.
On Tuesday, Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former prosecutor, said that the postponement of Trump's sentencing was an inevitable outcome of his win.
"The clock ran out," Honig said. "We like to say no person is above the law in this country, but the fact is one person largely is, and that's the president, because of the immunity ruling and because of the DOJ policy" that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.
"That's just sort of the cold, hard reality of the way our system works," he added, according to CNN.
