Left: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg attends as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand released report on illegal guns arrests and seizure on the plaza in front of Police Headquarters on December 4, 2023 in New York (Lev Radin/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images). Right: Former President Donald Trump leaves Manhattan criminal court, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer).
In a little under a month, convicted felon and former President Donald Trump is set to be sentenced in his criminal hush-money and election interference case, but on Monday, Manhattan prosecutors signaled that as the time draws near, they are not in fact opposed to delaying sentencing as Trump has recently requested.
Instead, prosecutors working under Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg wrote in a 2-page letter entered Monday, they will leave it up to New York Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan to decide how best to proceed.
Trump asked Merchan to have the Sept. 18 sentencing date delayed until after the results of the presidential election in November just a week ago, as Law&Crime reported. Merchan is expected to hand down a ruling on Trump's motion to dismiss his conviction based on the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity by Sept. 16.
Trump's defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argue that as a motion to set aside the guilty verdicts on 34 falsification of business record counts on presidential immunity grounds remains pending, Bragg has been in a "rush" to proceed to sentencing to further "naked election-interference objectives."
"The Court should adjourn any sentencing in this case, though one should not be necessary because dismissal and vacatur of the jury's verdicts are required based on Presidential immunity, until after the 2024 Presidential election," Blanche and Bove wrote on Aug. 14.
They also contend that if Merchan refuses their request to delay sentencing, there will not be a sufficient window of time left open to pursue an appeal before Trump learns his fate.
Trump is facing up to four years in prison when sentenced, but he could be sentenced to mere probation as well. And if Trump wins the 2024 election, as the New York Times noted on Monday, it could be up to Merchan to postpone his sentence until after his term expires. Trump's crimes in the hush-money case are not pardonable because they are state crimes.
While "the people defer to the court on the appropriate post-trial schedule," Bragg's attorneys wrote in the Aug. 16 letter first published to the docket Monday, they also wanted Merchan to note several points — including one from Trump's team that they flatly dubbed "bizarre."
In his most recent letter, Trump for the first time indicated his intent to seek interlocutory state or federal appellate review before he is sentenced and before there's even an "adverse" ruling on the matter, prosecutors wrote.
While true that denial of immunity from prosecution is "immediately appealable," Bragg's team noted that the hush-money case is very much unlike the situation with Trump's federal Jan. 6 criminal case, in which special prosecutors have been sent back to the drawing board to reshape the indictment.
In New York, prosecutors wrote, "the only question now before the court is whether a small subset of trial evidence was improperly admitted in light of a brand-new evidentiary rule that derives from official-acts immunity, and if so, whether any error in admitting official-acts evidence was harmless."
The high court's ruling on Trump's immunity question did not consider whether a trial court's ruling on that evidence is "immediately appealable," they added, so there are "strong reasons" why it should not be.
Nonetheless, they said, the evidence Trump says is affected by the immunity ruling is "only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof that the jury considered in finding him guilty of all 34 felony charges beyond a reasonable doubt."
"None of defendant's remaining arguments merit any consideration. First, although couched as a scheduling request, defendant re-raises for the fourth time a recusal grievance based on false claims of a potential conflict that have already been rejected over and over by this Court, the First Department, and the Advisory Committee," wrote prosecutor Matthew Colangelo. "Defendant's ostensibly new argument about the Court's family member's co-worker's tweets is bizarre and has nothing to do with the post-trial schedule."
Trump's lawyers have sought Merchan's recusal no less than three times and most recently, on the ultimately-failed basis that Merchan could not be impartial because his daughter, Loren Merchan, has done consulting work for Vice President Kamala Harris.
"Your Honor's daughter was publicly critical of President Trump's use of Twitter — a central issue in the pending Presidential immunity motion — and described a discussion on that topic with Your Honor that evidences prejudgment of President Trump's official-acts arguments," Trump attorneys argued in early August, Law&Crime reported.
In particular, Trump's lawyers would like to see testimony from Hope Hicks, Trump's former White House communications director, nixed. Hicks testified at trial about key elements central to the hush-money allegations, including information she divulged about a discussion she had with Trump in 2018 after a story emerged in the press about a $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Hicks testified that Trump told her Michael Cohen paid Daniels to protect him and keep what she described as "false allegations" at bay.
Law&Crime's Matt Naham contributed to this report.
