Judge delays Trump hush money sentencing in order to decide where case should go now

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NEW YORK (AP) — A judge confirmed Friday that President-elect Donald Trump won’t be sentenced this month in his hush money case, instead setting a schedule for prosecutors and his lawyers to expand on their ideas about what to do next.

Amid a flurry of filings in the case since Trump’s election win this month, it had already become clear that the Nov. 26 sentencing date wouldn’t hold. Judge Juan M. Merchan’s order Friday formalized that without setting a new one.

He called for more filing from both sides over the next 2 1/2 weeks about how to proceed in light of Trump’s impending return to the White House.

Trump’s lawyers want the case to be dismissed outright, and immediately. They have said that it otherwise will interfere with his presidential transition and duties.

Prosecutors have indicated that they’re open to putting the case on hold, perhaps as long as he’s in office, but they don’t want it to be scrapped altogether. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, has said the solution needs to balance the obligations of the presidency with “the sanctity of the jury verdict.”

Bragg’s office declined to comment on Friday’s ruling. Trump spokesperson and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung hailed it as “a decisive win” for Trump.

Trump, a Republican, was convicted in May of falsifying his business’ records to disguise the true nature of a chain of payments that provided $130,000 to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She received it, through Trump’s then-lawyer, in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign.

The payout was meant to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with the married Trump a decade earlier. He denies her claim and says he did nothing wrong.