Former President Donald Trump is now asking the judge overseeing his criminal hush money case to push back his Sept. 18 sentencing until after the November general election, saying that doing so would “mitigate” the “appearance of impropriety.”
“There is no basis for continuing to rush,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche wrote in the letter, dated Wednesday but made public Thursday.
He suggested that the current sentencing date could be perceived as an attempt to interfere in the election, considering Trump is the Republican Party’s nominee.
The sentencing date, however, has already been pushed back once.
A jury found Trump guilty on May 30 on 34 counts of falsifying business records in a case that revolved around a hush money payment to the porn actor Stormy Daniels in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Trump is accused of using his personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, to disguise the true purpose of the payment to help him win the election.
New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan originally set Trump’s sentencing hearing for July 11.
But a U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down July 1 threw a wrench in the proceedings, as the high court determined that U.S. presidents are immune from prosecution for all acts that are part of their official duties. The same day, Trump’s team cited the decision in a letter to Merchan asking him to delay the sentencing.
Merchan complied, pushing back the hearing to Sept. 18.
The judge said that he would weigh in on how the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity decision applies to the facts of Trump’s case beforehand, and issue a sentence only if he determined that the verdict should stand. He is expected to do so by Sept. 16.
While Trump was in office when the business records at issue were generated, the plot to cover up the hush money payment was hatched beforehand and arguably does not relate to his official duties as president.
Earlier this week, Merchan declined to recuse himself from the case on Trump’s request for the third time since 2023.
