Donald Trump asks federal court to take over criminal hush money case and block sentencing

DucTo DucToAugust 31, 2024

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Former President Donald Trump asked a Manhattan federal court Thursday to block his Sept. 18 criminal sentencing in his hush money case and take over the case going forward.

If the federal court agrees, Trump also wants it to set a schedule for him to file a motion to get the 34 guilty verdicts against him tossed out and the entire case dismissed. A 12-person Manhattan jury concluded unanimously May 30 that Trump falsified business records 34 separate times in order to cover up a sex scandal and unlawfully interfere in the 2016 election.

Trump accused Judge Juan Merchan, who has presided over the case, of bias in the Thursday filing, and said the sentencing could lead to his “immediate and unconstitutional incarceration and prevent him from continuing his groundbreaking campaign.”

Former President Donald Trump comments to members of the media after being found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree at Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 30, 2024, in New York. Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes as a New York jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

“Post-trial removal is necessary under these circumstances to afford President Trump an unbiased forum, free from local hostilities, where he can seek redress for these Constitutional violations,” according to the filing.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment.

Merchan has said he will rule Sept. 16 on whether to toss out the guilty verdicts based on Trump’s argument that evidence introduced at the trial ran afoul of the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling on presidential immunity from prosecution. Trump is currently scheduled to be sentenced two days later, assuming Merchan rejects his immunity argument and doesn’t reschedule the sentencing before then.

Bragg’s office declined to take a position on a separate request from Trump to Merchan to delay the sentencing until after the upcoming presidential election. The office argued that Trump shouldn’t be able to run out his appeal on the immunity issue before sentencing, but that an appellate court might disagree and disrupt court and security preparations for Trump to attend the sentencing.

The case dealt with a $130,000 hush money payment from Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to porn star Stormy Daniels less than two weeks before the 2016 election. Prosecutors argued the payment was designed to prevent voters from learning of Daniels’ story of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, just months after Melania Trump gave birth to Barron Trump. Trump has denied the encounter took place.