Manhattan prosecutors agree to delay Trump’s sentencing in silence case after Supreme Court immunity ruling

By Michael R. Sisak and Jake Offenhartz, Associated Press

Updated: 16 minutes ago Published: 14 an hour ago

NEW YORK — Manhattan prosecutors said they are prepared to delay sentencing against Donald Trump in his bribery criminal case following a Supreme Court ruling that granted presidents broad immunity protections.

In a letter filed Tuesday, prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said they are open to delaying the sentencing scheduled for July 11 for up to two weeks.

The letter came a day after Trump’s lawyer asked the judge to adjourn the hearing so he could consider the Supreme Court’s decision and its impact on the New York case.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is a developing story. The original story appears below.

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s lawyers on Monday asked the New York judge presiding over his bribery trial to throw out his conviction and postpone next week’s hearing.

Judge Juan M. Merchan cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday and asked the judge to postpone Trump’s sentencing so he could consider the high court’s decision and its impact on the New York case, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

According to the letter, the lawyers say the Supreme Court decision reaffirmed a position previously raised by the defense in the case that prosecutors should be barred from presenting certain evidence they said constituted official acts of the president.

In previous court filings, Trump has claimed immunity from prosecution for conduct that allegedly included official actions while he was in office. His lawyers have not raised that as a defense in the hush money case, but they have argued that some evidence — including Trump’s social media posts about his former lawyer Michael Cohen — dates back to his time as president and should be excluded from the trial under the immunity protection.

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The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment Monday evening.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, extending a stay of criminal proceedings in Washington against Trump over allegations that he sought to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat.

Trump was convicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records, stemming from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment just before the 2016 presidential election. He is scheduled to be sentenced in the hush money case on July 11.

Merchan instituted a policy in the lead-up to trial that required both sides to send him a one-page letter summarizing their arguments before filing longer court papers. He said he did this to better manage his schedule so he wasn’t inundated with voluminous documents.

In denying Trump’s request last year to move the trial from New York state court to federal court, a federal judge said the allegations in the case related to Trump’s personal life and “do not in any way reflect the nature of the president’s official duties.”

“The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that this was a purely personal matter for the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing incident,” U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein wrote in the ruling.

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Sisak contributed to the success from Fort Pierce, Florida.