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Former President Donald Trump's sentencing in his criminal hush money conviction has been pushed back until three weeks after the November election, the judge said Friday.

Trump will now be sentenced Nov. 26, if sentencing is still required by then, Judge Juan Merchan ruled.

Trump had asked Merchan to push his sentencing, which was scheduled for Sept. 18, until after the upcoming presidential election in November. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office chose not to take a position on Trump's request.

"Adjournments for sentencing are routinely granted, often several times, in any number of other criminal matters pending in this courthouse, particularly when unopposed, for reasons ranging from personal circumstances to the scheduling needs of the parties involved," Merchan wrote in the Friday decision.

"Given the unique facts and circumstances of this case, there is no reason why this Defendant should be treated any differently than any other," Merchan said.

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The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s criminal prosecution for interference in the 2020 election issued a series of deadlines on Thursday that will see prosecutors have the last word just days before the November election on whether the charges should be kept against the former president.

In a brief order, the US district judge Tanya Chutkan decided that prosecutors could file the first brief explaining how the charges against Trump in a slimmed-down indictment complied with the US supreme court’s ruling granting former presidents broad immunity from prosecution.

That means prosecutors – over the Trump team’s objections – will also have the final word on why they believe all of the conduct in the superseding indictment is not covered by immunity in a filing that is due on 29 October, just one week before the presidential election in November.

The order resolved a nagging issue for the Trump campaign ever since the supreme court returned the case to Chutkan in the weeks after it issued its ruling: how much of the damaging criminal case could be a factor in the final sprint to election day.

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Donald Trump has quietly wound down his presidential campaign in states he was targeting just six weeks ago amid polling evidence showing that Kamala Harris’s entry into the presidential race has put them out of reach and narrowed his path to the White House.

The Republican presidential nominee’s campaign has diverted resources away from Minnesota, Virginia and New Hampshire – states Trump was boasting he could win while Joe Biden was the Democratic candidate – to focus instead on a small number of battleground states.

Money is being poured into the three “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which were all carried by Biden in 2020 and are seen as vital to the outcome of November’s election.

Special attention is being paid to Pennsylvania, which has 19 electoral college votes, and where a new CNN poll shows Trump and Harris tied at 47% each.

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In a surprise move Thursday, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to all nine federal tax charges he faced, avoiding a weekslong trial as jury selection was scheduled to begin.

U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi set sentencing for Dec. 16. Scarsi had balked at an earlier offer from Biden to plead guilty under what is called an Alford plea. The plea is when a defendant accepts sentencing by acknowledging the prosecution has enough evidence to convict him, even if he doesn't admit wrongdoing.

Justice Department special counsel David Weiss’ team opposed an Alford plea, arguing that Biden should be forced to admit his guilt.

But ultimately Biden pleaded guilty to three felonies and six misdemeanors, on charges he failed to pay $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2019.

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Pro-Palestinian activists are growing increasingly frustrated with Vice President Harris as she remains in public lockstep with President Biden on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, but some are holding out hope she could take a harder line on Israel if elected as president.

Harris has not indicated that she would waver in weapons sales to Israel and has not shown breaks with Biden’s handling of the war, aside from slight changes in rhetoric when addressing the human suffering in Gaza.

Activists who initially expressed some optimism about Harris are ready to treat her candidacy the same as Biden’s — with protests at campaign stops and, for some, efforts to get progressives to vote against her in November.

“To many of the activists, Harris’s talking points about maintaining more or less unconditional military support for Israel just sound like a continuation of the Biden policy and approach,” said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

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A retired federal judge is among those asking an appeals court to reassign former President Trump’s indictment on charges of mishandling classified documents case to a new judge.

In documents filed with the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals, two groups of legal experts and former government officials say U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon should be removed from the case.

Former federal judge Nancy Gertner and two legal scholars, Stephen Gillers and James Sample say rulings by Judge Cannon and her numerous delays have raised “well-founded concerns that she may be biased against the Government’s case and unable to manage that case impartially.” They’re seeking permission to file an amicus brief.

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