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Former President Donald Trump is trying to indefinitely delay sentencing in his hush-money case.
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On Thursday, the former president filed a request to move the case to federal court.
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The effort could eventually lead to a US Supreme Court challenge of the case on immunity grounds.
Former President Donald Trump is trying to move his hush-money case to federal court in an attempt to get his guilty conviction tossed and delay sentencing in the case.
On Thursday evening, Trump’s attorneys requested that the US District Court in Manhattan intervene in the matter, arguing that the Manhattan State Court that tried the case violated his constitutional rights.
Trump’s attorneys cited the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity; if the case is taken up by federal court, it could be on the path to the US’s top court.
“This ‘zombie’ case should have been dismissed long ago,” lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in their 64-page filing to the US District Court.
The case, Blanche and Bove argue, could hurt Trump’s electoral chances this November.
The ongoing proceedings will continue to cause direct and irreparable harm to President Trump — the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential election — and voters located far beyond Manhattan,” they wrote.
“And an entirely unjust sentencing is currently scheduled to occur on September 18, 2024, which could result in President Trump’s immediate and unconstitutional incarceration and prevent him from continuing his groundbreaking campaign,” the lawyers added.
A representative from the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment when approached by Business Insider.
Representatives for Trump and the US District Court did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.
In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election.
Trump is set to be sentenced in the case on September 18, but his Thursday legal request, if granted, would delay that sentencing.
Trump’s lawyers filed the Thursday request to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who, earlier this year, rejected Trump’s previous motion to move the case to federal court.
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