Manhattan DA will fight Trump’s bid to dismiss criminal conviction; won’t oppose sentencing delay

MANHATTAN (CN) — Manhattan prosecutors intend to fight President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming efforts to set aside the guilty verdict in his hush money case, according to a letter filed Tuesday by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Bragg disagreed with Trump’s argument that his case should not continue because of his status as the president-elect.

“No current law establishes that a president’s temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a post-trial criminal proceeding that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution and that is based on unofficial conduct for which the defendant is also not immune,” he wrote Tuesday.

Yet that was the argument, Bragg said, that Trump made in a Nov. 8 letter to his office asking him to dismiss the case altogether — despite Trump being found guilty of 34 felonies just months ago.

While Bragg rejected Trump’s bid to drop the case, he did not oppose a third delay of his sentencing, now set for Nov. 26.

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan needs to sign off on a delay of Trump’s sentencing to make it official. But considering the prosecutors won’t oppose and Merchan already issued a stay of all current deadlines, it is incredibly unlikely that Trump will be sentenced on Nov. 26 as planned.

Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung called Bragg’s letter a “total and definitive victory.”

“The lawless case is now stayed, and President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all,” Cheung said in a statement Tuesday.

Trump is the first president in U.S. history to be criminally charged or convicted. Now, prosecutors must navigate the unprecedented criminal sentencing of an American president while that same man prepares to return to the White House in January.

“The people deeply respect the Office of the President, and are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency, and acknowledge that defendant’s inauguration will raise unprecedented legal questions,” Bragg wrote. “We also deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system.”

The district attorney acknowledged that he may need to wait until “after the end of defendant’s upcoming presidential term” to resume the case and follow through with Trump’s sentencing.

A jury in May found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records. The crimes were part of a broader scheme prosecutors described as Trump working to combat bad press related to his 2016 presidential campaign by paying hush money to an adult film star with whom he cheated on his wife a decade earlier.

Merchan had planned to issue an order last week on whether Trump’s conviction should stand following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling for broad presidential immunity — but the judge delayed his ruling after Trump won the Nov. 5 presidential election to give prosecutors time to traverse the uncharted legal waters.

Trump’s election has thrown a wrench in the two ongoing federal criminal cases against him, too. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice discussed winding down the cases as Trump gears up for his second presidential term.

Follow @Uebey Follow @uebey.bsky.social