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A judge on Tuesday delayed a decision on whether to throw out President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in the case of hush money because of a US Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Judge Juan M. Merchan told Trump’s lawyers that he was delaying the ruling until Nov. 19.

According to emails filed in court, Trump 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 back the White House a week ago, but the legal issue relates to his status as a former president, not an imminent one.

RELATED: Trump’s lawyers are pushing to overturn the hush money conviction after the Supreme Court decision

Trump convicted in hush money trial

Trump, 78, was found guilty on May 30, 2024 of 34 counts of falsifying business records after more than nine hours of deliberations, making him the first former US president to be convicted of criminal offenses .

Sentencing was scheduled for November 26. The judge postponed it from September 18, after the Republican candidate asked for it to be delayed until after the election.

Trump’s legal battle

Trump asked the judge to vacate his conviction and dismiss the case because of the US Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity.

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.

RELATED: The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling is “a big win” for Donald Trump, the expert explains

Supreme Court grants Trump little immunity

In a historic 6-3 ruling in July, the Supreme Court said for the first time that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for their official acts and no immunity for their unofficial acts.

However, the justices ordered lower courts to figure out how to apply the ruling, particularly to Trump.

RELATED: Supreme Court sends Trump’s immunity case back to lower court

The justice’s decision stemmed from the criminal case in Washington against Trump, alleging that he conspired to reverse his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump was accused in August 2023 by special counsel Jack Smith of conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss to President Joe Biden in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol. Prosecutors say Trump and his allies knowingly pushed for voter fraud to pressure state officials to overturn Biden’s win, worked to enlist fake voter lists in battleground states and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to disrupt the ceremonial counting of electoral votes.

The ruling reflected a muscular view of presidential power and left dissenting justices to criticize it as undermining the basic democratic principle that no person is above the law.

Trump’s plan to dismiss his other cases

Trump said “within two seconds” of taking office he would fire Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted two federal cases against him. Smith is already evaluating how to handle the cases because of the Justice Department’s longstanding policy that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.

Smith accused Trump last year of plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Trump can’t pardon himself when it comes to his New York state conviction in a hush money case, but he could try to leverage his status as president-elect in an effort to overturn or expunge the felony conviction and to avoid a potential prison sentence. .

A case in Georgia, in which Trump was accused of election interference, will likely be the only remaining criminal case. It would likely be put on hold until at least 2029, at the end of his presidential term. The Georgia prosecutor in this case just won re-election.