The judge who presided over former President Donald Trump’s so-called “hush money” conviction in Manhattan has agreed to delay his sentencing for months following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Monday granting him immunity for official acts while in office.

Justice Juan Merchan has postponed sentencing until Sept. 18 and, in the meantime, will weigh the high court’s decision, though he ultimately may determine that it has no bearing on Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, charges that were brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg after he and his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., initially determined that no charges were warranted in his payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Trump “was initially scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, just days before he is to be formally nominated for president at the Republican National Convention. He faces up to four years in prison, though he could receive as little as a few weeks in jail, or probation,” The New York Times reported.

“On Monday, the planned sentencing hit a snag when the Supreme Court granted Mr. Trump broad immunity from prosecution for official actions taken as president. The landmark ruling, which was decided 6-3 along partisan lines, dealt a major blow to Mr. Trump’s federal criminal case in Washington, where he is accused of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss,” The Times noted further, adding:

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The ruling appears to have little direct bearing on the Manhattan case, which concerns Mr. Trump’s personal activity during the 2016 campaign, not his presidency or official acts. And Justice Merchan might be skeptical of Mr. Trump’s effort to use the ruling to set aside his conviction.

Yet Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued that prosecutors built their case partly on evidence from his time in the White House. And under the Supreme Court’s new ruling, prosecutors not only cannot charge a president for any official acts, but also cannot cite evidence involving official acts to bolster other accusations.

Attorneys for Trump sent Merchan a letter following the ruling asking him to delay sentencing to consider the implications of the high court’s decision. In response, prosecutors from Bragg’s office contacted Merchan in a letter of their own to say they did not oppose the delay.

“Although we believe defendant’s arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” wrote Joshua Steinglass, one of the assistant district attorneys who tried the case.

Previously, a federal judge, Alvin Hellerstein, ruled that, regarding the payments to Daniels, the “evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely personal item of the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing event. Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts.”

In his brief to the high court prior to its Monday ruling, the 45th president warned that subjecting a president to prosecution could result in “years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.” He argued that the threat of future prosecution and imprisonment could be used as a political weapon.

Trump’s lawyer at the oral arguments, John Sauer, also warned the court that if special counsel Jack Smith’s charges prevail, “every current president will face potential blackmail and extortion by their political opponents.” A state conviction by an elected prosecutor could make this prediction more credible to the justices, who will decide how much protection the president should have.

“Trump, though, could be helped by the unusual — almost unprecedented — nature of Mr. Bragg’s case, in two ways. First, the district attorney’s use of federal election law — violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act — as a possible predicate for securing a state crime conviction. While the jury was not required to find Trump guilty on that head, it could emerge as a hook on which to hang an appeal,” the New York Sun reported.

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