The Manhattan district attorney's office has made a significant move by agreeing to postpone Donald Trump's sentencing in his hush money case. This decision comes as prosecutors need time to litigate the president-elect's expected motion to dismiss the case. In a letter to Judge Juan Merchan, it was also acknowledged that Trump is unlikely to be sentenced until after the end of his upcoming presidential term. However, the DA insists that Trump's felony conviction should stand.

Historical Turnaround for Trump's Legal and Political Fate

Just a year ago, Trump was facing four separate indictments. But now, as he prepares to retake the White House, the strategy of his lawyers to push all his cases beyond the 2024 election has been highly successful. Two federal cases are about to be wound down, the Georgia state case is long dormant, and the New York case is poised to end indefinitely without a sentence.Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to payments made to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse a $130,000 hush money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to prevent her from speaking out about an alleged affair before the 2016 election. (Trump has denied the affair.)In the letter to Merchan, the Manhattan district attorney argued that the judge should not dismiss Trump's conviction. They stated that no current law establishes that a president's temporary immunity from prosecution requires the dismissal of a post-trial criminal proceeding that was initiated when the defendant was not immune and is based on official conduct for which the defendant is also not immune.In a statement, Trump's spokesperson Steven Cheung called the filing a "total and definitive victory for President Trump."Merchan had been set to rule last week on whether to overturn the conviction based on this summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision that Trump should receive broad immunity for official acts during his time in office and that official acts cannot be used as evidence in a criminal trial. But the district attorney's office acknowledged the "unprecedented circumstances" of Trump's election as president, and Merchan's ruling was postponed.Trump's lawyers have argued that the conviction should be tossed due to the presidential immunity decision and because he is about to return to the White House. "The stay, and dismissal, are necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump's ability to govern," Trump attorney Emil Bove wrote in emails exchanged with the court and the district attorney's office this month. Trump has picked Bove to fill a high-ranking Justice Department spot in his new administration.Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former prosecutor, said that the postponement of Trump's sentencing was an inevitable outcome of his election. "The clock ran out," Honig said. "We like to say no person is above the law in this country, but the fact is one person largely is, and that's the president, because of the immunity ruling and because of the DOJ policy" that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted. "That's just sort of the cold, hard reality of the way our system works," he added.Sentencing was delayed twice before the election. Trump was indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg last spring, which was the first of four indictments he would face in 2023. The federal election subversion case was delayed indefinitely by the Supreme Court's immunity ruling. A Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed the classified documents case, and the Georgia case has languished amid a push from Trump and his co-defendants to have the Fulton County district attorney removed from the case.A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts after a two-month trial. But Trump's sentencing, originally scheduled for July, was delayed twice after the Supreme Court's immunity decision prompted his lawyers to file a motion to vacate the conviction. That effort, along with other tactics, including seeking to move the case into federal court, further delayed the proceedings and prompted Merchan to push the sentencing decision and a ruling on immunity until after the November election.Trump's lawyers have argued that the conviction should be tossed because the district attorney's office relied on evidence related to Trump's official acts as president during his first term, which should not have been presented to the jury at trial. Bragg's office has said that Trump's conviction should stand and that the evidence presented at trial was "overwhelming."