Former President Donald Trump asked a judge in New York to postpone the sentencing date in his hush money case until after the presidential election, according to a court filing made public on Thursday.
Trump’s attorneys wrote that the delay is necessary because of Trump’s concerns about a conflict of interest with Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter’s work at a Democratic marketing firm and because of the fast turnaround time from Merchan’s anticipated ruling on presidential immunity on Sept. 16 to Trump’s sentencing hearing two days later.
His attorneys also said the current sentencing date, Sept. 18, which will come after early voting in the election has already started, had the air of election interference.
“Setting aside naked election-interference objectives, there is no valid countervailing reason for the Court to keep the current sentencing date on the calendar,” Trump’s attorneys wrote. “There is no basis for continuing to rush.”
Trump’s sentencing delay request came one day after Merchan denied a separate request from Trump that the judge recuse himself from the case over his daughter Loren Merchan’s involvement with Authentic Campaigns.
Loren Merchan is a minority partner at the firm, which has raked in millions in recent years from its work for some of Trump’s top political rivals, including Vice President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).
The firm’s founder, Mike Nellis, addressed Republicans’ widespread worries about Loren Merchan in a public letter this week to the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the judge’s daughter and the conflict of interest claims and has sought records from Loren Merchan related to her work at Authentic.
Nellis, an ardent Harris supporter and fundraiser, said money Democrats have paid the firm is not a representation of Authentic’s profits and that much of it goes toward the firm’s expenses. He also confirmed that despite Authentic providing services to Harris during her previous run for president in 2019, Authentic has not performed work for Harris, Biden, or the Democratic National Committee since January 2023.
Trump’s attorneys argued that pushing the sentencing date past the election would help alleviate accusations of a conflict.
“The requested adjournment would prospectively mitigate the asserted conflicts and appearances of impropriety, which are also the subject of an ongoing congressional inquiry,” the attorneys wrote, noting that tens of millions of voters “do not share the views of Authentic.”
The attorneys also argued that if Juan Merchan denies their request to toss out Trump’s charges on presidential immunity grounds, they should have more than one day to appeal that ruling before sentencing occurs.
Lastly, Trump’s attorneys noted that the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, which found presidential actions are sometimes protected from criminal prosecution, also included an opinion about the “peculiar” public perceptions that can arise from criminal proceedings against a president.
The defense attorneys argued Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg should therefore not be allowed to submit his sentencing proposal ahead of the presidential election. The proposal, which would be public and is standard for prosecutors to file before a sentencing hearing, would be prejudicial to Trump, the attorneys argued.
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“DANY should not be permitted to file a public sentencing submission that will include what the Supreme Court described as the ‘threat of punishment,’ in a manner that is personally and politically prejudicial to President Trump and his family, and harmful to the institution of the Presidency as a result of the type of ‘peculiar public opprobrium’ associated with these proceedings that troubled the Trump Court,” they wrote.
A jury convicted Trump in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records of a payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Each count carries a penalty of up to four years in prison, though sentencing guidelines indicate Trump would receive far less than the maximum.
