Prosecutors oppose tossing Trump’s hush money conviction but are open to sentencing delay

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — New York prosecutors oppose any effort to dismiss President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money conviction, but they expressed openness Tuesday to delaying sentencing until after his impending second term.

In a court filing, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump’s forthcoming presidency isn’t grounds for dropping a case that was already tried. But “given the need to balance competing constitutional interests,” prosecutors said, “consideration must be given” to potentially freezing the case until after he’s out of office.

Prosecutors said they’re OK delaying Trump’s sentencing — which had been set for Nov. 26 — while his lawyers fight to get the case tossed out.

The former and future president was convicted in May of falsifying business records to cover up a scheme to influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to squelch a story of extramarital sex. Trump denies the allegations.

After Trump’s election win this month, his lawyers urged Judge Juan M. Merchan to throw out the case. They wrote that it must be scrapped “to facilitate the orderly transition of executive power — and in the interests of justice.”

Merchan gave prosecutors until Tuesday to weigh in on how to proceed.

Prosecutors said Tuesday they “are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency” and realize that Trump’s return to the White House “will raise unprecedented legal questions.”

“We also deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system,” they added.

No decision has been made, and Merchan has not said when he will rule. Still, Trump spokesperson and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung cast Tuesday’s filing from prosecutors as “a total and definitive victory for President Trump” in a case that he has long deplored as a “witch hunt.”

“President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all,” Cheung said in a statement.

The judge last week delayed ruling on Trump’s earlier bid to reverse his conviction because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in July that gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

A dismissal would erase Trump’s historic conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record as well as a possible prison sentence.

Merchan could also decide to delay the case for some period, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump’s parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court, or choose some other option.

Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier. The payment was made shortly before the 2016 election.

Trump says they did not have sex and denies any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him. Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels. Trump later reimbursed him, and Trump’s company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses — concealing what they really were, prosecutors alleged.

Trump has pledged to appeal the verdict if the case is not dismissed. He and his lawyers said the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as being for legal work.

Trump’s lawyers have been fighting for months to reverse his conviction.

A month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts — things they did in the course of running the country — and that prosecutors can’t cite those actions to bolster a case centered on purely personal, unofficial conduct.

Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the hush money jury got some improper evidence, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form, testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made during his first term.

Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was only “a sliver” of their case.

After Trump’s election win, his lawyers redoubled their efforts. They said Trump’s status as president-elect affords him “the same complete immunity” from prosecution as he would enjoy while president.

“To require President Trump to address further criminal proceedings at this point would not only violate the federal Constitution, but also disrupt the presidential transition process,” Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote.

Trump has tapped both for high-ranking jobs in Trump’s Justice Department.

If the verdict stands and the case proceeds to sentencing, Trump’s punishments would range from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison — but it’s unlikely he’d spend any time behind bars for a first-time conviction involving charges in the lowest tier of felonies.

Because it is a state case, Trump would not be able to pardon himself once he returns to office. Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes.

The hush money case was the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial.

Special counsel Jack Smith is taking steps to wind down Trump’s federal election interference and classified documents cases. A separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, is largely on hold.

Trump, a Republican, pleaded not guilty in all four cases, and he has decried the hush money verdict as a “rigged, disgraceful” result. He has claimed, without evidence, that the case brought by Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg was part of a Democratic effort to harm Trump’s presidential campaign.