Judge delays ruling on whether to dismiss Trump's hush money conviction
A judge delayed ruling Tuesday on whether to dismiss President-elect Donald Trump's criminal conviction in his hush money case because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
Judge Juan M. Merchan told Trump's lawyers he's delaying the ruling until Nov. 19.
According to emails filed in court, Trump lawyer Emil Bove asked for the delay over the weekend, arguing that putting the case on hold — and then ending it altogether — is "necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump's ability to govern."
Prosecutors agreed to the delay.
Trump won back the White House a week ago, but the legal question concerns his status as a past president, not an impending one.
Trump convicted in hush money trial
Trump, 78, was found guilty on May 30, 2024, of 34 counts of falsifying business records after more than nine hours of deliberations, making him the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes.
Sentencing had been scheduled for Nov. 26. The judge delayed it from Sept. 18 after the Republican nominee asked that it be delayed until after the election.
Trump's legal fight
Trump asked the judge to overturn his conviction and dismiss the case because of the U.S. Supreme Court's July presidential immunity ruling.
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.
Supreme Court gives Trump some immunity
In a historic 6-3 ruling back in July, the Supreme Court said for the first time that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for their official acts and no immunity for unofficial acts.
However, the justices ordered lower courts to figure out precisely how to apply the decision, specifically to Trump.
The justice's decision stemmed from the Washington criminal case against Trump on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss.
Trump was charged in August 2023 by special counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss to President Joe Biden in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors allege Trump and his allies knowingly pushed election fraud lies to pressure state officials to overturn Biden's win, worked to enlist slates of fake electors in battleground states and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to disrupt the ceremonial counting of electoral votes.
The ruling reflected a muscular view of presidential power, and left dissenting judges to criticize it as undermining a core democratic principle that no person is above the law.
Trump's plan to dismiss his other cases
Trump has said that "within two seconds" of taking office that he would fire Jack Smith, the special counsel who has been prosecuting two federal cases against him. Smith is already evaluating how to wind down the cases because of long-standing Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.
Smith charged Trump last year with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump cannot pardon himself when it comes to his state conviction in New York in a hush money case, but he could seek to leverage his status as president-elect in an effort to set aside or expunge his felony conviction and stave off a potential prison sentence.
A case in Georgia, where Trump was charged with election interference, will likely be the only criminal case left standing. It would probably be put on hold until at least 2029, at the end of his presidential term. The Georgia prosecutor on the case just won reelection.
