Trump’s sentencing in Manhattan trial postponed in view of Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity

The sentencing of Donald Trump on his 34 felony convictions in the Stormy Daniels hush money case has been postponed by New York State Judge Juan Merchan. Trump had been due to be sentenced on July 11. In his order, Judge Merchan pushed back the sentencing date until Sept. 18 and added “if such is still necessary,” indicating that he might have to throw out the entire case. Merchan’s action in postponing the sentencing came in the wake of the Supreme Court’s monumental ruling released Monday that Trump and all other presidents are entitled to immunity from prosecution for any crimes they commit while performing official duties.

Trump’s attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove claim that the Supreme Court’s ruling that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity from prosecution for acts related to their core responsibilities and presumptive immunity for everything else except strictly personal acts applies to the case in which Trump was convicted by a jury of falsifying business records and other infractions. They say that certain evidence used to convict Trump needs to be thrown out in view of the Supreme Court’s ruling because the evidence is from the period when Trump was president.

Blanche and Bove, in a letter to Judge Merchan, reminded him that they previously had filed a motion to preclude evidence of Trump’s official acts based on the presidential immunity doctrine.

“In that filing, we objected to anticipated testimony from certain potential witnesses, evidence of President Trump’s social media posts and public statements, and a 2018 filing with the Office of Government Ethics,” Trump’s attorneys said. They said that in view of the Supreme Court’s ruling that was released on July 1, “this official-acts evidence should never have been put before the jury. Consistent with arguments that we made before and during the trial, the Supreme Court held in Trump that President Trump ‘may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”

Merchan, in a letter to Bove and a state prosecutor, granted the request of Trump’s attorneys to file new material in support of their request that the conviction be overturned in view of the Supreme Court ruling.

Judge Merchan will now have to decide on the importance to the case of the evidence that dates from Trump’s time in office and whether the felony convictions can stand or need to be thrown out.