NEW YORK—Justice Juan Merchan, the presiding New York Supreme Court judge in the so-called hush money trial against President-elect Donald Trump, has delayed deciding whether to overturn 34 felony counts related to falsifying business records in a conspiracy to cover up hush money payments to AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels to interfere with the 2016 election.
This delay in Merchan’s decision will allow both the prosecutors and defense to hash out the best way to proceed after Trump’s 2024 electoral victory and return to the White House. Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the president has even broader immunity, the delay will buy the court time to decide how to proceed with sentencing.
Merchan, in a show of impartiality to the defense, delayed sentencing to November 26, 2024, despite a guilty verdict reached at the end of May.
Though a flimsy case to some, the prosecutors in Manhattan who brought the case against Trump were able to convince a jury of 12 New Yorkers that the president-elect was at the top of a criminal scheme to silence Stormy Daniels by laundering campaign funds through his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, to circumvent federal campaign finance laws.
