New York: The judge in the ‘hush money’ case against President-elect Donald Trump on Friday put off the sentencing indefinitely and indicated that he would consider throwing out the conviction.
Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling sets the path for Trump to assume the presidency in January without the cloud of a sentencing verdict hanging over him.
It is a temporary hold in an unprecedented case where a defendant convicted of criminal offences is elected president.
After postponements, the case had been set to proceed next week.
From the judge’s ruling, it appears that it could be resumed in 2029 when Trump ends his second term and will be 83 years old — if it is not entirely dropped.
Trump’s federal cases accusing him of election interference and mishandling top secret documents are winding down with the likelihood of being withdrawn.
State and local prosecutions are separate and federal officials have no authority over them.
A Georgia state case against Trump alleging election interference in the 2020 election is still pending, although tied up in a web of accusations of prosecutorial misconduct.
Merchan also allowed Trump’s defence team to file requests for dismissing the case by December 2, and for the prosecutors to file their response a week later.
Trump was convicted in May of falsely showing on his account books as legal payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels who had claimed to have had a tryst with him.
Prosecutors made each of the cheques he wrote as a separate criminal offence showing that he was convicted of 34 criminal offences – a propaganda point for the election campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris.
The case was brought by the local Manhattan prosecutor Alvig Bragg, who was elected to the position on a Democratic Party ticket, and the verdict was given by a jury made up of ordinary citizens.
The case dragged on for several weeks requiring Trump to appear in court as a defendant leaving him free to campaign on weekends and on days the case was not being heard.
The constraints and the convictions did not affect Trump’s showing in the election which he won with a majority of the popular votes.
A factor weighing on Merchan was sentencing a defendant who would be president in less than two months would interfere with him exercising his office.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that a Supreme Court verdict gave him broad immunity from prosecution and this will be litigated next month.
Trump nominated his lead lawyer in the case, Todd Blanche, to be the deputy attorney general, and another lawyer on the defence team, Emil Bove, as the principal associate deputy attorney general.
The two lawyers will be filing the papers to dismiss the case based on a Supreme Court verdict giving presidents immunity under certain circumstances.
(IANS)
