Trump became the first former US president convicted on criminal charges and was originally scheduled to be sentenced next week.
The judge in Donald Trump’s Hush Money case has granted a request to delay the former US president’s sentencing until at least September.
Tuesday’s decision follows a US Supreme Court decision that ordered broad criminal immunity for presidents in their official acts.
Trump’s legal team cited the high court ruling in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan requesting a postponement of the sentencing, which was originally scheduled for July 11.
Lawyers representing Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told Merchan they needed time to build their case that Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents to cover up secret payments made to an adult actress should be overturned. in the light of the Supreme. Court decision.
Before Merchan’s decision, prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump’s argument was “meritless” but agreed to delay sentencing.
Merchan said sentencing would be delayed until at least September 18, less than two months before the November 8 election.
Prosecutors argued that Trump falsified business records to cover up a $130,000 payment made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
They directly linked the payments to a broader scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election.
In the letter to Merchan, Trump’s lawyers argued that during the trial, prosecutors presented evidence involving Trump’s official acts as president, including posts he made on social media and conversations he had while in the White House.
That evidence should have been protected by presidential immunity, the lawyers said, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday.
The ruling by the majority of the six judges on the nine-member bench said presidents have “absolute immunity” from criminal liability for any acts within their “principal constitutional powers.” Evidence related to these official acts also cannot be presented at trial, the majority opinion stated.
However, the ruling, which was challenged by the court’s three liberal justices, states that presidents can still be prosecuted for acts outside those powers. The exact delineations remain unclear.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the ruling opened the door to “nightmare scenarios,” including possible immunity for the murder of a political rival.
“In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” she wrote.
Political implications
The Supreme Court’s ruling bodes well for Trump, who faces three more criminal trials.
It is expected to be most problematic for the legal argument at the center of a federal case related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election following his loss to President Joe Biden.
It could also have implications for a state trial in Georgia related to efforts to pressure officials to change the 2020 vote count, as well as a second federal trial related to Trump allegedly hiding and hoarding classified White House documents at his Florida estate .
The New York trial, however, was the only one expected to end before the elections. Although the initial guilty verdict did not show a major shift in support for Trump, analysts argued that a harsh sentence could turn some potential Trump voters away.
Merchan’s decision comes five days after Biden delivered a dismal performance in the first presidential debate against Trump, which put the Democrat’s campaign in damage control while also bringing to light concerns about the 81-year-old’s age. .
On Tuesday, a Reuters/Ipsos poll was released showing that one in three Democrats think Biden should end his re-election bid after his debate performance. Still, the poll revealed that no prominent elected Democrat would perform better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump.
On Wednesday, Biden reportedly met with Democratic governors in an effort to calm their concerns.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre also said Biden would give his first post-debate interview to ABC News on Friday and hold a news conference during a NATO conference next week.
She reiterated that Biden has no intention of giving up the race.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
