Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Tuesday he will agree to a delay in President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing, but he will object to any attempt to dismiss the criminal convictions, even beyond Mr. Trump’s upcoming term in the White House.
Mr. Bragg’s assent to another delay suggests that Mr. Trump will not face sentencing on three dozen counts of falsifying business records before he is inaugurated on Jan. 20. However, the prosecutor does not want the case to disappear.
In a new filing, Mr. Bragg floated a “deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of defendant’s upcoming presidential term,” meaning a possible sentencing in 2029.
The Trump transition team said Mr. Bragg’s filing amounted to a “total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American People who elected him in a landslide.”
“The Manhattan DA has conceded that this Witch Hunt cannot continue,” said Trump communications director Steven Cheung. “The lawless case is now stayed, and President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all.”
The president-elect is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26, after a jury in May convicted him on 34 counts related to hush money payments near the 2016 election.
But Mr. Trump’s status as a president-in-waiting threw the case into turmoil. There was no indication Tuesday on when the judge might issue a ruling.
New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan also must decide whether Mr. Trump’s conviction should be nullified, given a U.S. Supreme Court decision that granted presidential immunity for official acts. Defense attorneys say prosecutors used tweets and other evidence from Mr. Trump’s time in office in 2017 that should not have been admitted to the jury.
For now, Mr. Bragg believes the court should focus on back-and-forth motions over a possible dismissal of the case, with motions stretching into December.
“The people believe that further proceedings before this court should be adjourned to permit litigation of defendant’s forthcoming motion to dismiss and, therefore, the people would not oppose a defense motion for a stay of further proceedings before this court while defendant’s motion is adjudicated,” Mr. Bragg wrote.
The New York court is scrambling to sort things out because there is a precedent that dictates sitting presidents are not subject to criminal prosecution. For instance, special counsel Jack Smith is winding down federal prosecutions of Mr. Trump for that reason.
Mr. Trump has already been convicted in a Manhattan courtroom, however, making it an unusual situation.
At trial, prosecutors said Mr. Trump criminally concealed a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels around the 2016 campaign with an intent to violate election laws.
They said Mr. Trump paid Ms. Daniels through his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, and concealed reimbursements to the lawyer in 2017 by misidentifying checks.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers said he was busy running the country and thought he was paying Mr. Cohen for legal services, so his team logged the checks in that manner. They also said the trial was politically motivated and designed to thwart Mr. Trump’s political ambitions.
Mr. Trump’s status as a convicted felon did not prevent him from defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the election.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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