New York judge delays ruling on Trump’s hush money conviction

NEW YORK (TNND) — A New York judge delayed a ruling on whether or not to dismiss President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal conviction.

Judge Juan Merchan had to decide whether to toss out the jury verdict and order a new trial or dismiss the charges.

According to the Associated Press, Merchan told Trump’s lawyers Tuesday he’d delay the ruling until Nov. 19.

They also cited emails filed in court that show Trump’s lawyers asked for the delay over the weekend. Lawyers argued there are “strong reasons for the requested stay, and eventually dismissal of the case in the interests of justice.”

Trump and his legal team have been fighting the hush money conviction using the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

The Republican won back the White House a week ago but the legal question concerns his status as a past president, not an impending one.

Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election, where Trump was the Republican nominee. Daniels claims she and Trump had a sexual encounter a decade earlier, a claim that Trump has denied.

Just over a month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for actions they took in the course of running the country, and prosecutors can’t cite those actions even to bolster a case centered on purely personal conduct.

Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the hush money jury got some evidence it shouldn’t have, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form and testimony from some White House aides.

Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was only “a sliver” of their case.

The case centered on how Trump accounted for reimbursing his personal attorney for the Daniels payment.

The lawyer, Michael Cohen, fronted the money. He later recouped it through a series of payments that Trump’s company logged as legal expenses. Trump, by then in the White House, signed most of the checks himself.

Merchan has already delayed the sentencing twice — following the immunity decision in July and in September “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate,” according to the judge.

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Editor’s note: The Associated Press contributed to this article.