Donald Trump Asks For Sentencing To Be Postponed Until After The Election

Former President Donald Trump is asking the judge in his hush money trial to postpone sentencing until after the 2024 election.

Trump’s lawyers argued in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan that postponing Trump’s sentencing “prospectively mitigate the asserted conflicts and appearances of impropriety, which are also the subject of an ongoing congressional inquiry.”

Merchan has set a sentencing date of Sept. 18. But he also has to rule on Trump’s motion that he was immune from prosecution in the case, following a Supreme Court ruling in June.

In May, Trump was convicted by a jury of 34 New York state counts of falsifying business records. The former president is appealing, but he has argued that the process was biased against him, while Republican allies on the House of Representatives have bashed the verdict.

Merchan already has rejected Trump’s efforts to remove him from the case. But in the latest letter, Trump’s attorneys again raise issues about the judge’s daughter, and pointed to her business partner’s support for Kamala Harris.

Trump’s legal team said that a postponement also would prevent prosecutors from filing a sentencing recommendation while Merchan considers the immunity question.

“There is no basis for continuing to rush,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.