NY Judge Plans Trump Sentencing 10 Days Before Inauguration

On Friday, a New York Democrat judge denied Donald Trump’s request to dismiss the lawfare brought against him by Manhattan’s leftist prosecutor. He also scheduled a sentencing hearing for the president-elect 10 days before he’s sworn into office.

In his 18-page ruling, New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan — who previously donated to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign — declined the soon-to-be 47th president’s motion to toss a May 2024 jury verdict convicting him of 34 felony counts. New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought the case. The jury in deep-blue Manhattan found Trump guilty on all counts related to a payment his then-lawyer made to a pornographer as part of a nondisclosure agreement ahead of the 2016 election.

“Finding no legal impediment to sentencing and recognizing that Presidential immunity will likely attach once Defendant takes his Oath of Office, it is incumbent upon this Court to set this matter down for the imposition of sentence prior to January 20, 2025,” Merchan wrote. “It is this Court’s firm belief that only by bringing finality to this matter will all three interests be served.”

According to the New York Post, “Trump’s lawyers had claimed that Merchan failing to throw out the jury’s verdict would unconstitutionally interfere with the president-elect preparing to serve a second term” and that “the conviction should be overturned based on July’s US Supreme Court ruling immunizing a president for ‘official acts’ taken in office.”

Sentencing in the case was originally slated to take place in July but was delayed until mid-September following the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. Trump’s team subsequently filed a motion in August to delay the sentencing until after the 2024 presidential election, at which the court agreed in September to adjourn until late November.

Following Trump’s victory, the president-elect’s team filed a motion on Nov. 10 requesting a “stay [of] the existing scheduled dates […], and eventual dismissal of the case.” As my colleague Brianna Lyman reported, Merchan ultimately “agreed to delay proceedings until after the left-wing Manhattan district attorney’s office decides how to proceed now that Trump is president-elect.”

Bragg agreed to delay sentencing in the case indefinitely later that month.

In his Friday ruling, Merchan claimed that “Presidential immunity from criminal process for a sitting president does not extend to a President-elect” and that “a President-elect is not permitted to avail himself of the protections afforded to the individual occupying that Office.”

“Any claim Defendant may have that circumstances have changed as a result of Defendant’s victory in the Presidential election, while convenient, is disingenuous,” Merchan wrote. “Defendant has always pronounced, since the inception of this case, confidence and indeed the expectation, that he would prevail in the 2024 Election — confidence that has proven well founded. … Thus, it was fair for this Court to trust that his request to adjourn sentencing until after the election carried with it the implied consent that he would face sentence during the window between the election and the taking of the oath of office.”

Merchan said that “while Trump could have faced up to four years behind bars on each of the counts, ‘a sentence of an unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality’ and [indicated he will] allow Trump to pursue his appeal options,” according to the Post.