Wednesday, November 13, 2024 - A New York judge will decide whether to throw out Donald Trump’s conviction in his criminal “hush money” case based on the US Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity earlier this year.
The US president-elect faces up to four years in prison after he
was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover
up payments to porn star Stormy Daniels before Trump was elected president
in 2016.
The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in July that Trump enjoys absolute
immunity from prosecution for “official acts” during his presidency. The
nation’s top court left it up to lower courts to sort out what constitutes an
“official act” by a sitting president.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan had delayed sentencing by
more than four months until after the election.
If the conviction is upheld, Trump, 78, is scheduled to be
sentenced on Nov. 26, less than two months before his inauguration.
Trump’s sweeping election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris will
embolden his legal team to make sure that sentencing never happens, legal
experts have said.
Prosecutors have argued that the case centers on “entirely personal”
conduct with “no relationship whatsoever to any official duty of the
presidency,” as the crimes were committed before he took office, ABC 7
reported.
The “evidence that he claims is affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling
constitutes only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof
that the jury considered in finding him guilty of all 34 felony charges beyond
a reasonable doubt,” prosecutors said.
Trump’s defense team has argued that certain evidence presented to the
jury, including his conversation with former White House communications
director Hope Hicks and his social media posts as president, muddled the jury’s
understanding of the case.
If Merchan tosses the conviction, the judge could still order a new
trial — which would be delayed for at least four years until Trump leaves
office. He could also dismiss the indictment entirely.
Meanwhile, Justice Department officials are likely to drop the pair of
cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith while he was out of
office related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the hoarding of
classified documents.
The DOJ has a longstanding policy of not prosecuting a sitting president
and officials there reportedly are aware it would be futile to continue
pursuing charges before Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20.
“Many legal scholars, including myself, agree it’s almost certain he
will never see the inside of a jail cell,” Quinnipiac University assistant
professor of law Wayne Unger told The Post last week.
Former prosecutor Neama Rahmani agreed, saying, “Now that Trump has won,
his criminal problems go away.”
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