NEW YORK — A judge has delayed a decision on whether to overturn President-elect Donald Trump’s conviction in his hush money case after his lawyers asked to freeze and eventually dismiss the case so he can lead the country.

New York Judge Juan M. Merchan was scheduled to rule Tuesday on their earlier request to overturn their conviction because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this summer on presidential immunity. Instead, he told Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday that he would delay the ruling until Nov. 19.

According to emails filed in court, Trump’s lawyer, Emil Bove, asked for the delay over the weekend, arguing that a stay of the case — and then an end to it altogether — is “necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern.”

Prosecutors agreed to the adjournment.

Trump won the White House a week ago, but the legal issue concerns the Republican’s status as a former president, not an imminent one.

A jury convicted Trump in May of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. The payment was to buy her silence about claims she had sex with Trump.

He says they didn’t, denies any wrongdoing and claims the prosecution was a political tactic designed to damage his latest campaign.

Just over a month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that former presidents cannot be prosecuted for actions they took while running the country, and prosecutors cannot cite those actions even to support a case centered on a purely personal case. conduct.

Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the hush money grand jury obtained some evidence it shouldn’t have, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form and testimony from White House aides.

Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was just “a sliver” of their case.

Trump’s criminal conviction was a first for any former president. It left the 78-year-old facing the possibility of punishment ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.

The case centered on how Trump explained his personal attorney’s reimbursement for Daniels’ payment.

The lawyer, Michael Cohen, was in front of the money. He later recouped it through a series of payments that Trump’s company booked as legal expenses. Trump, then in the White House, signed most of the checks himself.

Prosecutors said the designation was intended to hide the true purpose of the payments and help cover a broader effort to prevent voters from hearing unflattering claims about the Republican during his first campaign.

Trump said Cohen was legitimately paid for legal services and that the Daniels story was suppressed to avoid embarrassing the Trump family, not to influence the electorate.

Trump was a private citizen — campaigning for president but neither elected nor sworn in — when Cohen paid Daniels in October 2016. He was president when Cohen was repaid, and Cohen testified that they discussed the arrangement of reimbursement in the Oval Office.

Trump has been fighting for months to overturn the verdict and may now try to capitalize on his status as president-elect. Although he was tried as a private citizen, his upcoming return to the White House could prompt a court to step in and avoid the unprecedented spectacle of convicting a former and future president.

While urging Merchan to overturn the conviction, Trump also sought to take the case to federal court. Before the election, a federal judge repeatedly said no to the move, but Trump appealed.