President-elect to be sentenced on Friday over conviction stemming from money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels
Donald Trump on Monday lost a bid to put off his sentencing on Friday for his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star.
Citing both presidential immunity and the demands of Trump’s impending January 20 inauguration as the 47th US president, his lawyers on Monday morning said judge Juan Merchan’s intention not to penalize Trump was “of no moment”.
“Presidential immunity violations cannot be ignored in favor of a rushed pre-inauguration sentencing,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing. In a written ruling later on Monday, Merchan said Trump’s motion was mostly “a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past”.
The judge declined to push back Trump’s January 10 sentencing, a date he had set just last week.
In scheduling Trump’s sentencing for Friday, the judge noted last week that he was not inclined to send Trump to jail. He wrote that a sentence of unconditional discharge, effectively putting a judgment of guilt on his record without a fine or probation, would be the most practical approach given Trump’s looming inauguration.
The judge said Trump, 78, may appear at his sentencing either in person or virtually. In their Monday filing, Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove asked Merchan to hold off sentencing Trump while the appeals play out. Any delay would make it unlikely that Trump would be sentenced before his January 20 inauguration.
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to the adult film actor and producer, Stormy Daniels, to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump, who denies it.
After a six-week trial in state criminal court in Manhattan, a jury in May found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying records to mask the payment prior to the 2016 election.
The hush money case made Trump the first US president – sitting or former – to be charged with and convicted of a crime.
