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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