New York prosecutor supports suspension | Wilnesh News

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office told a judge on Tuesday that it supports a pause in President-elect Donald Trump’s planned sentencing in a criminal hush-money case to give Trump’s lawyers time to argue that the case should be dismissed outright.

The District Attorney’s Office told Judge Juan Merchant that they will continue to oppose the motion to dismiss on the basis that the case should be dismissed because of Trump’s election as president.

Prosecutors asked Merchin to create a motion schedule for the defense’s motion to dismiss.

Merchant has not yet ruled on prosecutors’ filing.

“This is a resounding and decisive victory for President Trump and the American people who overwhelmingly elected him,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The Manhattan District Attorney has acknowledged that this witch hunt cannot continue. This lawless case is now on hold and President Trump’s legal team is moving to have it dismissed once and for all,” Zhang said.

The New York case is one of four criminal indictments against Trump, whose fate hangs in the balance or is all but certain due to the Republican victory over Vice President Kamala Harris two weeks ago.

Trump was convicted in Manhattan in May Supreme Court 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

The records relate to a $130,000 payment his then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election in exchange for her alleged confession a decade earlier. Remaining silent about one-time tryst with Trump.

Mo Qian is expected to rule on Trump’s lawyers’ request to dismiss as early as November 12. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office opposed the request.

But after Trump won the election, the district attorney’s office told Merchants they wanted him to delay the ruling to give them time to determine how the victory would affect the case.

Merchant gave them a week to complete the work.

Before the stay was ordered, Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on November 26.

Two criminal cases against Trump in federal court are expected to be dismissed before or soon after he enters the White House. Trump has the power to order his attorney general to dismiss the cases. The Justice Department, led by the attorney general, also has a policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents.

In one of the cases, Trump was charged in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., with crimes related to his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

The judge there is considering the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July ruling in the case, after special counsel Jack Smith asked her to temporarily suspend all proceedings in the wake of Trump’s election.

Smith also asked a federal appeals court in Atlanta to halt proceedings in an attempt to overturn a charge dismissed by Florida U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon accusing Trump of withholding classified government records after leaving the White House. The appeals court granted the delay, which, like the delay in Washington, was seen as a precursor to the Justice Department abandoning the case altogether.

In a fourth criminal case in state court in Atlanta, Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants have been charged with crimes stemming from their attempts to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss to Biden in Georgia.

Trump and some of the other defendants are appealing a trial court’s decision to allow Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to proceed with the case even though she and a top prosecutor she assigned to the case Guan had a romantic relationship.

On Monday, the Georgia Court of Appeals canceled oral arguments without explanation until further notice of Trump’s scheduled appeal on Dec. 5.