Donald Trump’s sentencing on 34 felony counts related to his 2016 hush money scheme has been put on indefinite hiatus, a judge ruled on Friday.
Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan agreed to a request from both parties to cancel the sentencing, which had been scheduled for November 26.
The cancellation means that Trump is exceedingly unlikely to face sentencing over the guilty verdict before he takes office on January 20, 2025. Merchan said in the ruling that he would hear arguments on whether to dismiss the case in light of Trump’s election.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said earlier this week that he would oppose a motion from Trump’s legal team to dismiss the case on the grounds of Trump’s recent election. But he made it clear that Trump’s election has catapulted the case into uncharted legal territory. Bragg suggested that Merchan may consider freezing the case for the duration of Trump’s term, but made no specific suggestion on how Merchan should proceed.
Throughout the six-week spring trial, Merchan ruled conservatively: he showed deference to Trump’s defense attorneys, and scolded them on several occasions for not being more aggressive in their defense of the the former President.
Merchan has yet to rule on a separate motion to dismiss the case from Trump over the Supreme Court’s July immunity decision. In that ruling, the court found that evidence relating to a President’s official conduct could not be admitted during a prosecution of unofficial conduct. That could shatter part of the trial, which focused on payments that Trump directed while in office to reimburse Michael Cohen for the hush money scheme.
