2024 US Election

A New York judge on Friday granted Donald Trump permission to seek dismissal of the criminal case in which he was convicted in May of 34 felony counts involving hush money paid to a porn star in light of his victory in the November 5 U.S. presidential election.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan formally delayed the sentencing of Trump, which had been scheduled to take place Tuesday. Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office this week asked Merchan to consider deferring all proceedings in the case until after Trump, 78, finishes his four-year presidential term, which begins on January 20.

Lawyers for Trump, a Republican, have argued that the case must be dismissed because having it loom over him while he is president would cause "unconstitutional impediments" to his ability to govern.

Bragg's office said it would argue against dismissal, but he agreed that Trump deserves time to make his case through written motions.

Merchan on Friday set a December 2 deadline for Trump to file his motion to dismiss and gave prosecutors until December 9 to respond. The judge did not set a new date for sentencing or indicate how long proceedings would remain on hold. Merchan also did not indicate when he would rule on Trump's motion to dismiss.

Representatives for Trump's campaign and for Bragg's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.

A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to cover up his reimbursement of Cohen. It was the first time a U.S. president — former or sitting — had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offense.

Trump pleaded not guilty in the case, which he has sought to portray as a politically motivated attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to interfere with his campaign.

Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania conceded his reelection bid to Republican David McCormick on Thursday, as a statewide recount showed no signs of closing the gap, and his campaign suffered repeated blows in court in its effort to get potentially favorable ballots counted.

Casey's concession comes more than two weeks after Election Day, as a grindingly slow ballot-counting process became a spectacle of hourslong election board meetings, social media outrage, lawsuits and accusations that some county officials were openly flouting the law.

Republicans had been claiming that Democrats were trying to steal McCormick's seat by counting "illegal votes." Casey's campaign had accused Republicans of trying to block enough votes to prevent him from pulling ahead and winning.

In a statement, Casey said he had just called McCormick to congratulate him.

"As the first count of ballots is completed, Pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted or the last," Casey said.

The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on November 7, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.

As of Thursday, McCormick led by about 16,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted.

That was well within the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.

But no election official expected a recount to change more than a couple hundred votes or so, and Pennsylvania's highest court dealt Casey a blow when it refused entreaties to allow counties to count mail-in ballots that lacked a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.

Republicans will have a 53-47 majority next year in the U.S. Senate.