Manhattan district attorney suggests freezing Trump’s case while he is president

NEW YORK – Manhattan prosecutors on Nov 19 rebuffed President-elect Donald Trump’s request to dismiss his criminal conviction in the wake of his electoral victory, signalling instead their willingness to freeze the case while he holds office.

In a letter to the judge overseeing the case, prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office emphasised that a jury had convicted Trump of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal. Prosecutors and judges are often loath to unravel a jury’s verdict.

But acknowledging the unprecedented nature of the case – Trump would be the first felon to serve as president – prosecutors raised the prospect of a four-year freeze so that he will not be sentenced for his crimes until he is out of office.

The judge, Justice Juan Merchan, will decide in the coming weeks whether to freeze the case or dismiss it outright, a momentous ruling that will shape the outcome of the only one of Trump’s four criminal cases that made it to trial. Dismissing the case would further embolden Trump as he enters his second presidential term, solidifying an aura of invincibility around him.

In their letter, prosecutors spoke out against a dismissal, urging the judge to balance the interests of the presidency with “the integrity of the criminal justice system”.

“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,” prosecutors wrote. “We also deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system.”

In a recent letter to the district attorney’s office, Trump’s lawyers requested that the prosecutors proactively move to dismiss the case.

Doing so, they argued, would “avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern”, citing the “complex, sensitive and intensely time-consuming” presidential transition process.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a career prosecutor and elected Democrat, took a week to deliberate before delivering the much-anticipated response on Nov 19. His prosecutors ultimately determined that there was no law requiring the dismissal of a jury conviction obtained well before a defendant was elected president.

But Trump, eager to clear his criminal record, will now take his request to Justice Merchan, setting in motion a legal battle that could cast a shadow on his second presidential term and ultimately reach the Supreme Court. That fight will almost certainly delay Trump’s sentencing, which had been scheduled for next week.

A spokesman for Trump, Mr Steven Cheung, celebrated the delay, calling it “a total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American people”.

He added: “The lawless case is now stayed, and President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all.”

Mr Bragg’s options were limited and unappealing: He could have either dropped the case, a move that would have voided the jury’s verdict and alienated his liberal Manhattan base, or suggested some way to pause it, potentially intensifying Trump’s ire and drawing a legal challenge.

His prosecutors did not exactly propose the four-year freeze. Instead, they raised it as a preferable alternative to a dismissal, citing “the need to balance competing constitutional interests”.

They also asked Justice Merchan to put the case on hold while both sides submit formal arguments in the battle over a potential dismissal.

Those arguments tee up a legally and politically fraught decision for Justice Merchan, the no-nonsense judge who presided over Trump’s seven-week trial in 2024. Even as Trump has accused Justice Merchan of being “biased” and “corrupt” – and levelled personal attacks at his daughter, a Democratic political consultant – the judge has vowed to apply “the rules of law even-handedly”.

It is unclear how Justice Merchan will eventually rule as he balances the weight of a jury verdict against the extraordinary status of the defendant.

A former prosecutor known for his law-and-order leanings, Justice Merchan might be hesitant to throw out the verdict. Instead, he could be more amenable to freezing the case, having postponed the sentencing twice.

Long sentencing delays are not unheard of. When defendants are ill – or cooperating with prosecutors against other defendants – it can take months or years for them to be sentenced.

But another delay for Trump, this one lasting four years, would underscore the sharp reversal in his legal fortunes. Just a few months ago, Trump was facing the prospect of time behind bars in New York, as well as trials in three other criminal cases.

Now, all four cases may unravel. In July, a judge Trump appointed during his first term dismissed his federal classified documents case in Florida in its entirety. The same month, his federal election interference case in Washington was upended following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision granting him broad immunity for official actions taken as president.

While the federal special counsel who brought those cases sought to revive them, Trump’s victory thwarted those plans. The judge overseeing his election interference case in Washington recently paused all filing deadlines while the special counsel, Mr Jack Smith, weighed whether to drop the case.

The future is less clear in Georgia, where Trump’s state racketeering case has been on hold for months while an appeals court weighs whether to disqualify the prosecutor. At some point, Trump’s lawyers are expected to call for a long delay if not an outright dismissal.

Trump’s lawyers will not settle for a delay in Manhattan, and should Justice Merchan decide against a dismissal, he will not have the final word.

The former and future president could appeal against the judge’s decision in either state or federal court. If he loses, the case might wind its way to the Supreme Court, where the 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices Trump appointed.

As he gears up for a legal dogfight, Trump might eventually revamp his legal team. Last week, he picked two of the lawyers who represented him at trial, Mr Todd Blanche and Mr Emil Bove, for senior roles in the Justice Department, most likely creating an opening for a new group of appellate lawyers to take over.

A new legal team could also inherit Trump’s separate effort to overturn his conviction based on the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. Within hours of the ruling in July, Trump’s lawyers had moved to throw out the verdict.

Manhattan prosecutors have argued that the immunity ruling had “no bearing” on their case, noting that Trump’s cover-up of the sex scandal was unrelated to his presidency. Justice Merchan was poised to rule on the matter last week but shelved the decision in the light of Trump’s new bid to have the case dismissed. NYTIMES