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Manhattan DA agrees to postpone Trump's hush money sentencing

N.Hernandez34 min ago

The Manhattan district attorney agreed Tuesday to postpone Donald Trump's sentencing in his while he serves his second term as president.

In the letter obtained by CNN, Alvin Bragg said they would not dismiss the case where the president-elect was already convicted but raised the prospect of a four-year freeze for sentencing.

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.

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 official conduct for which the defendant is also not immune," the district attorney's office to Judge Juan Merchan.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called the filing a "total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American People who elected him in a landslide."

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

The judge halted proceedings last week after Trump's lawyers urged him to dismiss the case "to avoid unconstitutional impediments" to the incoming president's ability to run the country.

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.

Because it is a state case, Trump would not be able to pardon himself once he returns to office. Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes.

The hush money case was the only one of Trump's four criminal indictments to go to trial.

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