NEW YORK (AP) – A judge on Tuesday delayed a key ruling in President-elect Donald Trump’s hush-money lawsuit, as his lawyers argued it should be dismissed in the interest of managing the country.
New York Judge Juan M. Marchan was scheduled to rule Tuesday on an earlier request to throw out Trump’s historic conviction on other grounds — the highest court on presidential immunity this summer. This is because of the ruling. Instead, Marchan asked Trump’s lawyers to halt proceedings and issue a ruling so prosecutors could give their views on how prosecutors should respond in light of last week’s election victories for the former president and president-elect. has been postponed until at least November 19th.
Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors agreed to a one-week delay in recent days, according to emails filed in court Tuesday.
The “unprecedented situation” requires prosecutors to consider how to balance the “competing interests” of the jury’s verdict and the presidency, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo wrote.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove argued that abandoning the lawsuit is “necessary to avoid an unconstitutional impediment to President Trump’s ability to govern.”
Trump campaign spokesman Stephen Chan announced the postponement, saying the president-elect’s victory “makes it abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including in this case.” “The incident should never have happened,” he said.
Prosecutors declined to comment.
A jury in May found Trump guilty of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. The reward was to buy her silence over allegations that she had a sexual relationship with Trump.
President Trump maintains they did not have sex, denies any wrongdoing, and claims the charges were a political tactic meant to damage his latest campaign. Trump is a Republican. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, is also a Democrat.
Just over a month after the ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that former presidents cannot be prosecuted for acts they committed in the course of running the nation’s affairs, and that prosecutors are not allowed to use such charges to strengthen cases that are centered on purely personal matters. The court ruled that the act could not be cited. act.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the hush money jury obtained evidence they shouldn’t have, including Mr. Trump’s presidential financial disclosure forms and testimony from some White House aides.
Prosecutors disagreed, saying the evidence in question was only “a small part” of the case.
Trump’s criminal conviction was the first for a former president. The 78-year-old faced a possible fine, suspended sentence or up to four years in prison over the incident.
The case centered on how Mr. Trump reimbursed his personal lawyer for payments made to Mr. Daniels.
Attorney Michael Cohen took over the funding. He later got it back through a series of payments that Trump’s company recorded as legal costs. Trump was in the White House by then and signed most of the checks himself.
Prosecutors said the designation was intended to obscure the true purpose of the payments and to help cover up a broader effort to keep voters from hearing unflattering claims about the Republican Party during the first campaign. He said that.
Trump said Cohen was legally compensated for his legal services and that Daniels’ story should not be used to embarrass Trump’s family or influence voters. He said it was hidden because of this.
When Mr. Cohen paid Mr. Daniels in October 2016, Mr. Trump was a private citizen who was campaigning for president but had not been elected or sworn in. Mr. Trump was president when Mr. Cohen was repaid, and Mr. Cohen testified that he discussed the repayment arrangement in the Oval Office.
Trump has been fighting for months to overturn the ruling. While asking Marchand to have his conviction vacated, the president-elect is seeking to move the case to federal court. Before the election, federal judges repeatedly said no to the move, but Trump appealed.
President Trump faces three other unrelated charges in various jurisdictions.
But Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith is considering how to defuse both the 2020 election interference case and a separate classified documents case against President Trump before he takes office, the issue said. A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. A long-standing Justice Department policy has been that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.
Meanwhile, the Georgia election interference case against Trump remains largely on hold, with Trump and other defendants appealing a judge’s ruling that allowed top prosecutor Fanny Willis to continue prosecuting the case. I am doing it.
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Associated Press writer Alana Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
