The judge in Donald J. Trump’s Manhattan criminal case delayed his sentencing until Sept. 18 to weigh whether a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling might imperil the former president’s conviction, the judge said Tuesday in a letter to prosecutors and defense lawyers.
The judge, Juan M. Merchan, may ultimately find no basis to overturn the jury’s verdict, but the delay was a surprising turn of events in a case that had led to the first conviction of an American president. With the election on the horizon, the sentencing might be the only moment of criminal accountability for the twice-impeached and four-time-indicted former president whose other cases are mired in delay.
Mr. Trump, who was convicted of falsifying business records related to his cover-up of a sex scandal during his 2016 presidential campaign, was initially scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, just days before he is to be formally nominated for president at the Republican National Convention. He faces up to four years in prison, though he could receive as little as a few weeks in jail, or probation.
On Monday, the planned sentencing hit a snag when the Supreme Court granted Mr. Trump broad immunity from prosecution for official actions taken as president. The landmark ruling, which was decided 6-3 along partisan lines, dealt a major blow to Mr. Trump’s federal criminal case in Washington, where he is accused of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss.
The ruling appears to have little direct bearing on the Manhattan case, which concerns Mr. Trump’s personal activity during the 2016 campaign, not his presidency or official acts. And Justice Merchan might be skeptical of Mr. Trump’s effort to use the ruling to set aside his conviction.
Yet Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued that prosecutors built their case partly on evidence from his time in the White House. And under the Supreme Court’s new ruling, prosecutors not only cannot charge a president for any official acts, but also cannot cite evidence involving official acts to bolster other accusations.
In a letter to Justice Merchan, Mr. Trump’s lawyers on Monday asked the judge to postpone the sentencing while he considered their request to set aside the conviction. In response, the district attorney’s office wrote that prosecutors did not oppose Mr. Trump’s request.
“Although we believe defendant’s arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” wrote Joshua Steinglass, one of the assistant district attorneys who tried the case against the former president.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers proposed filing their court papers on July 10, and the district attorney’s office said it would respond two weeks later.
Justice Merchan granted those requests on Tuesday and said he would rule on Mr. Trump’s motion to set aside the verdict on Sept. 6. Then, if a sentence “is still necessary,” the judge will impose it on Sept. 18, he said.
The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, was the first to bring criminal charges against Mr. Trump last March. Three other indictments followed in three other jurisdictions — Washington, Florida and Georgia — but Mr. Bragg’s case is likely to be the only one to make it to trial before Election Day. If he is re-elected, the cases will almost certainly grind to a halt.
In May, a jury of 12 New Yorkers convicted Mr. Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying records stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, in the final days of the 2016 campaign. His fixer at the time, Michael D. Cohen, paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 to silence her story of a sexual liaison with Mr. Trump, who eventually reimbursed Mr. Cohen.
While paying hush money is not inherently illegal, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors accused Mr. Trump of instructing his employees to lie on company paperwork to hide the nature of the reimbursement.
The district attorney’s case framed the hush-money payment as part of a broader conspiracy by Mr. Trump and his allies to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors presented evidence detailing how The National Enquirer, the supermarket tabloid, played a central role in the conspiracy with its catch-and-kill strategy of buying and burying negative stories about Mr. Trump and publishing sensational and false ones about his rivals.
“After further briefing on these issues beginning on July 10, 2024, it will be manifest that the trial result cannot stand,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote in their letter on Monday.
Yet the effort to set aside the conviction might be a long shot. Much evidence in the case concerned Mr. Trump’s conduct during the campaign and the transition after he was elected but before he was sworn in. Although he was in the White House while signing the reimbursement checks to Mr. Cohen, Mr. Bragg has argued that doing so was a personal act.
At least one federal judge has already agreed with Mr. Bragg. Before the trial, Mr. Trump tried to move the case to federal court, arguing that the evidence centered on his official acts as president. But a judge rejected that argument.
“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely personal item of the president — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” the judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, wrote in an opinion last year. “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties.”
Even the Supreme Court ruling on Monday appeared in some measure to discourage Mr. Trump’s effort to throw out the jury’s verdict. In a footnote, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that a “prosecutor may point to the public record” to illustrate an argument, a provision that appeared to sweep in much of the evidence that Mr. Trump wants thrown out, including his tweets, public statements and personal financial disclosure form.
One aspect of the prosecution’s evidence that might be more vulnerable is testimony from former White House employees recounting meetings and conversations with President Trump.
Prosecutors called Madeleine Westerhout, a former director of Oval Office operations, who testified about scheduling a February 2017 visit between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, a meeting where Mr. Cohen says they discussed reimbursement for the hush-money payment.
Prosecutors also questioned Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump’s former spokeswoman, who testified about her discussion in the White House with Mr. Trump after The Wall Street Journal reported in 2018 about the hush-money deal with Ms. Daniels.
“Mr. Trump’s opinion was it was better to be dealing with it now, and that it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election,” Ms. Hicks recalled on the stand, testimony that Mr. Steinglass referred to during his closing argument as “devastating.”
But it’s unclear whether that conversation could constitute an official act, simply by virtue of where it occurred. And during the trial Justice Merchan appeared skeptical of the defense’s argument that the prosecution should not question Ms. Hicks about that conversation.
“The objection is noted,” he told Mr. Trump’s lawyer, before allowing the testimony to proceed.
