Donald Trump’s hush money sentencing looks set to go ahead after a federal court rejected his attempts to have the case transferred.
Legal commentator Norm Eisen welcomed the federal court’s decision and said the transfer request was a “Hail Mary” pass by Trump’s legal team.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday, Eisen, a frequent Trump critic, said: “Called it: Judge Hellerstein AGAIN rejected Trump’s attempts to remove his NY case to federal court. He just threw out Trump’s hail-mary immunity argument bc ‘hush money payments were private unofficial acts, outside bounds of executive authority.'”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s attorney via email for comment on Wednesday.
Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, was tried in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels, a former adult film actor, ahead of the 2016 presidential election. On May 30, a jury convicted him on all 34 counts.
The only remaining barrier to sentencing is an upcoming September 16 decision by trial judge Juan Merchan on Trump’s request that he either dismiss the case or postpone sentencing indefinitely.
That request is based on the July 1 Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, which gave Trump broad protection from prosecution.
Merchan has already delayed sentencing by two months because of the Supreme Court ruling. While it is unlikely he will throw out the charges, there is a possibility that he will delay sentencing again to consider the Supreme Court’s decision.
If he rejects both of those options, he will sentence Trump two days later on September 18. Trump will be the first former president ever to be sentenced for a crime.
Several legal analysts who spoke to Newsweek said Merchan is unlikely to jail Trump so close to the 2024 election.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and the president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers firm in California, told Newsweek that Merchan will likely go easy on Trump.
“I think Trump will receive probation or a suspended sentence. Home confinement is unlikely during a presidential election,” he said.
Former President Donald Trump at a campaign event in Potterville, Michigan, on August 29. Trump is due to be sentenced on September 18 for hiding hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, previously told Newsweek that he believed an appeal court would strike down any prison term Merchan imposed.
“If Merchan sentenced him to jail in the middle of the election for this records violation, I think the courts would do whatever is necessary to prevent it. We’d be in uncharted waters,” Germain said.
On August 29, Trump’s legal team sought to move the sentencing in the hush money case to federal court based on the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the request on Tuesday.
The judgment read: “Nothing in the Supreme Court’s opinion affects my previous conclusion that the hush money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.”
It was the second time that Hellerstein rejected Trump’s transfer request.
