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NEW YORK (AP) — The judge presiding over the case in which Donald Trump was convicted of paying to hide complaints against him has delayed a key ruling on presidential immunity for the tycoon until two days before his scheduled sentencing.
The decision on the immunity is due on Sept. 6, while the judgment on the silence purchase is due on Sept. 18. But Mr. Trump’s lawyers last week asked Judge Juan M. Merchan to first rule on their renewed request to have the judge recuse himself from the case.
In a letter released Tuesday, Merchan deferring a decision on immunity until Sept. 16 if it is still needed after he decides next week whether to recuse himself from the case.
Merschamp said the Republican presidential candidate still plans to appear in court on Sept. 18 for “sentencing or other appropriate proceedings.”
Trump’s lawyer Todd Branch and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment.
In May, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business documents to conceal an arrangement to silence porn actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election as she was considering going public with her story about a sexual relationship with Trump a decade earlier.
The mogul has denied Daniels’s claims, insisting he did nothing wrong and saying the case is politically motivated. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg leans toward the Democratic Party.
Trump’s lawyers now say the Supreme Court’s July decision on presidential immunity justifies overturning the ruling made in May and completely dismissing the allegations that the payments were made to hide information Trump faces. The defense also claims the trial was “tainted” by evidence that should not have been allowed under the high court’s ruling, such as testimony from several members of Trump’s White House staff and tweets he posted while he was president in 2018.
The high court’s ruling prevents former presidents from being tried for official actions and limits prosecutors’ ability to use official actions as evidence to prove the commander-in-chief’s unofficial actions were illegal.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office insisted the Supreme Court’s opinion was “irrelevant” to the case over payments to conceal information because it involves unofficial conduct, from which the former president is not immune.
Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers last week asked Merchin to withdraw from the case for the third time, saying her daughter’s work on the 2020 campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, who was formally nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee yesterday, highlighted questions about her ability to appear impartial.
Merchan last year rejected two previous recusation requests, saying the defense’s concerns were “hypothetical” and based on “innuendo” and “unfounded speculation.”
Trump’s attorney, Branch, said Harris’s participation in the presidential race makes all of those issues “more concrete” and said the judge did not address them in enough detail.
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