admin
To give prosecutors more time to fight the president-elect’s anticipated move to have the case dismissed,
The Manhattan district attorney’s office announced on Tuesday that it would agree to postpone Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case.
The district attorney’s office also admitted that Trump is unlikely to receive a punishment “until after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term”
In a letter to Judge Juan Merchan. But according to the DA, Trump’s criminal conviction ought to remain in effect.
According to a source close to the district attorney’s office, the case could be put on hold for four years.
The events mark the culmination of a historic and extraordinary turnabout in Trump’s political and legal career. Trump was dealing with four different indictments a year ago.
With the two federal cases set to conclude, the Georgia state case long dormant, and the New York case set to end indefinitely without a sentence,
Trump’s attorneys’ strategy of trying to extend all of his cases past the 2024 election has proven wildly successful as he gets ready to retake the White House.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 charges of falsifying business documents over payments made to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen.
To reimburse a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair before the 2016 election. (The affair has been denied by Trump.)
The Manhattan district attorney contended in the letter to Merchan that the court ought to uphold Trump’s conviction.
A post-trial criminal proceeding that was started when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution and that was founded on official conduct for which the defendant.
Is also not immune must be dismissed because of a president’s temporary immunity from prosecution, according to a letter from the district attorney’s office.
Trump spokeswoman Steven Cheung referred to the filing as “a total and definitive victory for President Trump” in a statement.
Based on the US Supreme Court’s ruling this summer that Trump should be granted broad immunity for official conduct committed.
While in office and that official activities cannot be used as evidence in a criminal trial, Merchan was scheduled to make a judgment last week regarding whether to reverse the conviction.
However, Merchan’s decision was delayed because the district attorney’s office recognized the “unprecedented circumstances” surrounding Trump’s election.
Due to Trump’s impending return to the White House and the presidential immunity ruling, Trump’s attorneys have claimed that the conviction should be overturned.
In emails sent this month to the court and the district attorney’s office, Trump lawyer Emil Bove stated that “the stay and dismissal are necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments.
To President Trump’s ability to govern.” Bove has been appointed by Trump to a senior position in his new Justice Department.
Former prosecutor and CNN senior legal commentator Elie Honig stated on Tuesday that Trump’s win would inevitably result in a deferral of his punishment.
“The timer went off,” Honig remarked. Because of the immunity rule and the DOJ policy that states a serving president cannot be charged,
“we like to say no one is above the law in this country, but the fact is one person is largely above the law, and that is the president.”
“That’s just the harsh, unforgiving truth of how our system operates,” he continued. Trump wants the case dismissed.
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general candidate and Trump defense lawyer, contends in a two-page letter docketed Wednesday that Trump’s reelection “mandates” .
The case’s dismissal, stating that “just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect.”
Trump’s attorneys contend that pursuing this issue further would “hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus, both in foreign and domestic affairs” and be “uniquely destabilizing.”
In order to file a motion to dismiss, his attorneys are requesting that the court grant them until December 20. The Manhattan DA requested a December 9 deadline,
But Trump’s attorneys argue they need more time to review “positions taken by DOJ in the federal case.” By December 2, special counsel Jack Smith has promised to present a plan to conclude the two federal charges he has filed against Trump.
“The mandate issued by the Nation’s People on November 5, 2024, takes precedence over the political goals of DANY’s ‘People.'” The letter demands that this matter be dismissed right away.
Twice before the election, sentencing was postponed. Last spring, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump in the first of four indictments he would get in 2023.
In the end, it would be the sole case against Trump that would proceed to trial: A Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed the case involving classified documents,
The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling put an indefinite delay on the federal election subversion case, and the Georgia case has been stalled while .
Trump and his co-defendants have been trying to have the Fulton County district attorney removed from the case. During a two-month trial, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.
However, after Trump’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the conviction in response to the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, his sentencing—which was initially set for July—was postponed twice.
Merchan decided to postpone the sentencing judgment and the immunity ruling until after the November election as a result of this endeavor and other strategies, such as trying to transfer the case to federal court.
Because the district attorney’s office used information about Trump’s official actions as president during his first term,
Which shouldn’t have been shown to the jury during the trial, Trump’s attorneys have argued that the conviction should be overturned.
Trump’s conviction should stand, according to Bragg’s office, because the evidence used during the trial was “overwhelming.”