NEW YORK (AP) — New York prosecutors oppose any effort to dismiss President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money conviction, but they expressed some openness Tuesday to delaying sentencing until after his impending second term.
In a court filing Tuesday, 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.
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.
His sentencing had been set for Nov. 26. But 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.
Manhattan 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 other length of time, 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 legal expenses 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, arguing that dismissing the case “in the interests of justice” was warranted both under the immunity ruling and because of his status as president-elect.
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.
Some of Trump’s supporters embraced his conviction, showing up to campaign rallies in T-shirts with slogans like “Free Trump” and “I’m Voting For the Convicted Felon.”
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 his two federal cases against the president-elect. One centers on Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, the other on allegations that he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. A separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, is largely on hold.
Trump, a Republican, 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 Democrat-led “witch hunt” meant to harm his presidential campaign.
