Federal judge deals major blow to Trump’s last-ditch effort to delay his sentencing

30 August 2024

Former President Donald Trump's legal team is running out of options to delay his September 18 felony sentencing date after a Friday ruling by a federal judge.

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin tweeted Friday evening that U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein (an appointee of former President Bill Clinton) officially denied the Trump team's request to remove his felony hush money cover-up case from Manhattan to federal jurisdiction. While Trump has the option to refile the petition, Rubin noted that he has to do so either with the blessing of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg or from Judge Juan Merchan. So far, he has neither.

In an interview with MSNBC host Chris Hayes, Rubin explained that the former president's 11th-hour effort to push back his sentencing date isn't done yet. He still has pending motions before Judge Merchan that may result in either postponing the imposition of a sentence until after the election, or even throwing out the case altogether due to the immunity the Supreme Court granted to the ex-president in its controversial Trump v. United States decision in July.

"This is a classic example of if you first don't succeed, try, try again," Rubin said. "They have two levers to play now. If Judge Merchan denies their motion to set aside the verdict, they have already indicated that they are going to try to appeal that prior to any sentencing as well. They signed a letter to him indicating that they believe they have state and federal appellate vehicles for that ... if and when they get Judge Hellerstein's permission to file a third notice, if that happens and they don't like his ultimate answer, they could try to exercise their appellate rights with respect to that, too."

"The question is whether or not they have left themselves enough time to essentially beat Merchan to the punch if he wants to go forward with the sentencing on September 18th," she added.

This prompted Hayes to ask Rubin if he was "crazy," as he was under the impression that "you usually can't appeal post-conviction pre-sentencing." She assured the host that he was "not crazy at all," and acknowledged that "we are making up a lot of new rules as we go along" as the 45th president of the United States-turned-convicted felon and his team of expensive attorneys have created multiple unprecedented legal questions.

"They seem to believe that the unprecedented nature of the case plus the immunity decision necessitates an appellate option prior to that post-conviction review that is typically unusual in the state courts," Rubin said. "That's at least the argument they have made, that they don't have to go through sentencing first, that if they lose the motion to set aside the verdict that they are entitled to take this up through state or federal courts. But you're not wrong to say that's not usually the way that this happens."

As of right now, Trump is due in Manhattan on September 18th to be sentenced for his 34 class E felony convictions. Judge Merchan has the ability to sentence Trump as many as 20 years behind bars, though that's an unlikely scenario given that Trump is a 78 year-old first-time offender who was convicted for non-violent crimes. The September 18th date was already more than 60 days after the date he was initially scheduled to be sentenced, as Merchan needed extra time to determine whether the Supreme Court's ruling granting absolute broad immunity to presidents for official acts affected Trump's guilty verdict.

However, former defendants who have been sentenced in Merchan's courtroom have said that the toughness of the sentences he imposes depends entirely on how respectful a defendant is toward both Merchan and the legal process as a whole. And after the former president repeatedly attacked the judge overseeing his case, his daughter and numerous witnesses, Merchan imposed a gag order, only for him to violate that on 10 separate occasions.

Watch Rubin's full segment below, or by clicking this link.

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