Former President Donald Trump asked a New York court on Thursday to delay sentencing on the 34 felony charges he was convicted of in May until after the presidential election in November.
Judge Juan Merchan has scheduled a sentencing hearing for September 18. However, this date coincides with early voting in the presidential election and leaves Trump too little time to appeal a possible ruling against him. Merchan plans to request the verdict be overturned two days earlier, lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in a letter to Merchan on Wednesday.
The one-page letter was not on the court’s official agenda Thursday morning, but Blanche provided a copy to States Newsroom and said it had been filed with the court.
Merchan’s timeline is unrealistic and ignores several related issues, Trump’s lawyers wrote.
A sentencing trial could unduly influence voters’ perceptions of Trump in the run-up to Election Day, and Merchan’s daughter’s ties to elected Democrats could undermine public confidence in the court, they wrote.
Although Merchan rejected three requests from Trump to recuse himself from the case because his daughter works for a company that produces campaign ads for the Democrats, Trump’s lawyers said delaying the verdict would help reduce any possible appearance of a conflict of interest.
Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, continue to discuss the case on the campaign trail. And the founder of the company where Merchan’s daughter works has expressed support for Harris on social media, Blanche and Bove wrote.
Electoral complications
The verdict is scheduled for September 18, “after the start of early voting in the presidential election,” they wrote.
“By postponing sentencing until after this election, the Court could reduce, if not eliminate, questions about the integrity of future proceedings,” they wrote.
According to a database maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures, Pennsylvania law allows early voting. Pennsylvania counties allow early voting 50 days before Election Day, which is September 16.
It is unclear whether voting will be possible in any district of this important swing state any time soon.
According to the NCSL database, no other state allows voting before Sept. 18. Blanche did not respond to an emailed question about which early voting he was referring to in the letter.
Immunity of the President
Trump’s lawyers said the sentencing hearing also had to be postponed to address another aspect of the case: Trump’s argument about his immunity as president.
Trump has sought to overturn his conviction after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents are entitled to broad criminal immunity for their official actions.
Merchan set a Sept. 16 deadline for a ruling on the state’s motion to overturn the conviction, but Trump’s lawyers said that does not give Trump enough time to appeal a potentially unfavorable ruling on the immunity issue.
“The requested adjournment is also necessary to provide President Trump with sufficient time to consider and pursue state and federal appeals options in response to any adverse ruling,” they wrote.
They wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision to grant the president immunity was the result of a pretrial appeal.
A New York jury convicted Trump in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records, making him the first former president to be convicted of a crime. Trump was accused of sending $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels through attorney Michael Cohen in the weeks before the 2016 election to buy her silence about an alleged sexual encounter years earlier.
Merchan had originally scheduled the sentencing for July 11.
But after the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that presidents enjoy complete immunity from criminal prosecution for their official actions, the New York judge agreed to delay sentencing to first decide how the Supreme Court’s decision affects the New York case.
Although most of the conduct he is accused of in the New York trial occurred before Trump took office, his lawyers argue that the indictment also included investigations into meetings with Cohen in the Oval Office that could be inadmissible under Supreme Court standards.
