Sentencing delayed in Trump hush money case, as he says he’s being targeted for political reasons

Following a brief hearing Friday morning in the defamation case against former President Donald Trump brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, Trump held a press conference in New York City denying any wrongdoing in the many legal cases against him.
“We had a trial today,” Trump said at the press conference. “It’s an appeal of a ridiculous verdict of a woman I have never met. I don’t know. I have no idea who she is. She wrote a book, and she made a ridiculous story up.”
The hearing Trump attended was to appeal the jury’s verdict that found him guilty of sexually abusing Carroll in 1996 in a department store. The longtime columnist had written a story accusing Trump of the incident in her book that was published in 2019.
Carroll also filed two defamation lawsuits against Trump for statements he made, claiming that his remarks damaged her reputation and led to constant threats. In May 2023, during the trial for her first lawsuit, a jury found Trump liable for both defamation and sexual abuse, awarding Carroll $5 million in damages.
In January, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million in defamation damages by a New York jury.
In the nearly hour-long press conference Friday, Trump accused his political opponents of using the Department of Justice as a weapon to alter the results of the upcoming presidential election, where Trump is the Republican nominee.
“This is a disgraceful case, and disgraceful in particular because it’s about a former president of the United States who is now leading in the polls to be the president again, and this is being worked with the DOJ, Department of Justice, as are all of these cases,” Trump added.
“Remember, it never happened. It was made up for political reasons, and the DOJ is behind everything. Every one of these cases, it’s political interference,” he added. “I don’t want anything different from anybody else. I just asked for fairness.”
Trump’s attorney, Will Scharf, also spoke at the press conference, calling Carroll’s case “utterly implausible.”
“There is no corroboration for anything she has ever claimed about President Trump. There are no corroborating witnesses, as President Trump alluded to, there is not confirmatory DNA,” he added. “No police report was filed at the time of this alleged incident. She was unable to identify when this incident occurred, until quite recently, no surveillance evidence or witnesses have ever been found or come forward confirming any aspect of E Jean Carroll’s story.”
It is “Trump’s core First Amendment right to run for president, that is a right guaranteed to him by the Constitution, that is the right that his political opponents are attempting to strip away from him. We have seen this in case after case after case where unfair political motives have underlay what should be serious legal proceedings,” Scharf said.
In what might be considered a win for Trump, the judge overseeing his criminal case has postponed the sentencing date until after the November presidential election.
In April, Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, making him the first president in history to become a convicted felon.
On Friday, Judge Juan Merchan granted Trump’s request to delay his sentencing set for Sept. 18. The new date is Nov. 26. Merchan wrote that his reasoning behind the delay is “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate,” according to The Associated Press.
“The court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” he added.