NEW YORK, (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump yesterday lost a bid to put off his sentencing on Friday for his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star.
Citing both presidential immunity and the demands of Trump’s impending Jan. 20 inauguration, his lawyers on Monday morning said Justice Juan Merchan’s intention not to penalize Trump was “of no moment.”
“Presidential immunity violations cannot be ignored in favor of a rushed pre-inauguration sentencing,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing.
In a written ruling later on Monday, Merchan said Trump’s motion was mostly “a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past.” The judge declined to push back Trump’s Jan. 10 sentencing, a date he had set just last week.
In scheduling Trump’s sentencing for Friday, the judge noted last week that he was not inclined to send Trump to jail. He wrote that a sentence of unconditional discharge, effectively putting a judgment of guilt on his record without a fine or probation, would be the most practical approach given Trump’s looming inauguration.
The judge said Trump, 78, may appear at his sentencing either in person or virtually.
In their Monday filing, Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove asked Merchan to hold off sentencing Trump while the appeals play out. Any delay would make it unlikely that Trump would be sentenced before his Jan. 20 inauguration.
A Republican, Trump has long argued that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, brought the case to harm his reelection campaign. Bragg has said that his office routinely brings felony falsification of business records charges – the charge Trump faced in the case.
Prosecutors with Bragg’s office had urged Merchan to deny Trump’s bid to delay the sentencing.
“The balance of equities weighs heavily in the People’s favor given the strong public interest in prompt prosecution and the finality of criminal proceedings,” the prosecutors wrote on Monday afternoon.
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump, who denies it.
After a six-week trial in state criminal court in Manhattan, a jury in May found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying records to mask the payment prior to the 2016 election.
The hush money case made Trump the first U.S. president – sitting or former – to be charged with and convicted of a crime. Since the verdict, his lawyers have made two unsuccessful attempts to have the case tossed.
Merchan previously rejected their argument that the U.S. Supreme Court’s July finding in a separate criminal case against Trump that presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts meant the hush money case must be dismissed. Merchan ruled that the hush money case concerned Trump’s personal conduct.
After Trump won reelection, his lawyers argued that having the case hang over him while president would impede his ability to govern. Merchan denied that bid, writing that overturning the jury’s verdict would be an affront to the rule of law.
