Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has agreed to postpone sentencing for President-elect Donald Trump in his business records case.
A Nov. 19 letter to New York Justice Juan Merchan showed Bragg stating that his office believed “further proceedings before this Court should be adjourned to permit litigation” surrounding Trump’s motion to dismiss.
Sentencing was scheduled for Nov. 26 but the court said on Nov. 10 that it will grant a stay of the ongoing deadlines until Nov. 19. Both sides had requested a temporary stay.
“This is a total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American People who elected him in a landslide,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told The Epoch Times via email. “The Manhattan DA has conceded that this Witch Hunt cannot continue.”
Cheung said Trump’s legal team is working to get the case dismissed.
Trump has asked the court to throw out the verdict and indictment based on presidential immunity. A decision on that request was initially expected earlier this month.
The letter from Bragg’s office did not acquiesce to Trump’s arguments to dismiss the case over the immunity issue, nor his request to move the case to federal court.
“We believe these arguments are incorrect,” the letter said. “The People deeply respect the Office of the President, are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency, and acknowledge that Defendant’s inauguration will raise unprecedented legal questions.”
Trump’s attorneys argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States, which granted different levels of criminal immunity for presidents’ official conduct, barred the use of certain evidence and witness testimony.
In his July response to the request to dismiss the indictment, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued that Trump had waited too long to raise some of his arguments about immunity. He also said a federal judge had deemed the conduct in question—an alleged payment to Stephanie Clifford—outside of a president’s official duties.
On Nov. 19, Bragg’s office argued that “no current law establishes that a president’s temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a post-trial criminal proceeding.”
