Posted on 07/02/2024 12:51:56 PM PDT by Macho MAGA Man
Far-left Judge Juan Merchan delayed President Trump’s ‘hush money’ sentencing until September 18.
Earlier Tuesday Alvin Bragg’s office agreed to delay Trump’s sentencing set for July 11 after the Supreme Court decided on presidential immunity.
.... Snip....
Judge Merchan said he will issue a ruling related to the presidential immunity argument on September 6.
NBC News reported:
The judge in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial on Tuesday approved a delay of the former president’s sentencing after his lawyers asked for more time to review the potential impact of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision.
Trump’s lawyers have indicated that they want Judge Juan Merchan to toss out Trump’s felony conviction on 34 counts of falsified business records related to hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The hearing, previously scheduled for July 11, will be delayed until at least September 18.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
The Merchan-of-V(en)ice from Manhattan hopes the Court of Appeals will kill the fake case without sanctioning him.
Funny how everything just keeps working out for Trump. Almost like it was planned. 🤔
Other Freepers have explained how several aspects of the case involve discovery and move into grey areas.
Dude is probably afraid of Trump winning and the southern district of NY knocking on his and his daughter’s door
“Simply used the name given to the case by the NY judge.”
You have got to be kidding!! And you saw the judge’s unhinged behavior conducting the trial; he would not let Trump’s lawyers mount a defense. And you quote the worm???
No, absolutely not; the trial was not about hush money payments. It was about an NDA that he tried to elevate to a felony.
NDAs occur every day of the week. Legal. Based on contract law. The porn star signed it after she blackmailed the Trump campaign.
This is for Biden’s benefit...not Trump. They still haven’t decided what to do with Biden...and he looks like he’s gonna drop dead. Better to put Newsome on the ticket...and get rid of Kamala at the same time.
So then, still not a convicted felon.
The first appeal is that the DA did not, and the judge did not force the DA to, present the full charges for which Trump was to be tried. Without that, which is explicitly stated in the 6th Amendment, you can’t even have a trial.
Persecution delayed is persecution denied.
This timeline puts everybody beyond a very critical juncture, and the whole court proceedings may have been blown out of the water by then.
Many posters believe the SCOTUS will intervene in the Bragg/Merchan NY case. Trump was convicted for "NY state" crimes. Appeals for "NY state" crimes generally go to a NY State Appellate court.
My fear would be that Trump's lawyers go to the SCOTUS to argue Merchan and Braggs illegal missteps and the SCOTUS tells them, "no standing here, your appeal should be taken to the NY State Appellate court."
An NDA, a signed contract, is not illegal.
Let’s put our thinking caps on here.
It would seem the SCOTUS immunity opinion comes into play here and Merchan and Bragg need time to figure it out.
Merchan and Bragg have two connected issues that need to be resolved. One, is that the decision of the jury on the underlying crime needed to be unanimous. Two, they are going to have to reveal what that underlying crime was so it can be determined if it was an “immune” act. What DID the jury find to be the underlying crime? Does anyone know? Or was it as Merchan allowed, that 3 found the underlying act to be one thing, 3 another, and 6 even another.
Besides the immunity opinion issued this week, there was also the case of Erlinger v United States.
The findings were that “the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require a unanimous jury to make the determination beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant’s past offenses were committed on separate occasions for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act.”
Not exactly on point, but close. The underlying crime of which Trump was found guilty is going to have to be revealed so it can be determined whether it was an official act. And, that underlying crime had to be unanimously decided by the jurors.
Erlinger case here:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-370_8n59.pdf
Does my thoughts here make sense?
The brilliant lawfareist Andrew Weissman had just reassured Andrea Mitchell that the opinion would not affect either the Bragg case or the documents case; amazing how little knows for one so central the politburo’s agenda. And yet he’s an intellectual giant next to Jack Smith
Yes and no.
Yes, your understanding of it is entirely correct, but I don't see the connection to the SCOTUS decision. You have rightly called out the basic flaws in the case.
No, I'm not sure that the underlying crime is something that would have been covered by immunity.
First, as best as I can determine, Bragg put forth three possible underlying crimes:
If Trump was a President who was running for reelection, running for election is a personal act whether one is the incumbent or not, so any finance law violations would not be protected.
If the tax fraud charge were to be more carefully analyzed in a trial (it was not), this might have been a case of Trump paying too much tax on Cohen's behalf. Bragg was alleging that even paying too much tax was still filing a fraudulent tax return. I don't think a charge like this would survive pre-trial motions.
Finally, the conspiracy charge is what depended on the testimony of others. In Trump's case Bragg used the testimony of a White House official (which is presumptively protected). Communications with David Pecker and Michael Cohen would not have been protected if they occurred when Trump was President. Of course, none of it would have been protected if they occurred in 2016.
-PJ
Thanks PJ!
But, Trump DIDN’T pay those monies from campaign funds. They were paid from his personal account and they were paid after he was elected.
Also PJ, I posted this article from Technofog that just happens to be a long article regarding just what we were discussing. How the court’s opinion affects the NY case. It is the final issue addressed in the article.
https://technofog.substack.com/p/presidential-immunity-trump-v-us
FR thread here:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4248392/posts
Colangelo was an employee of the federal government when he gathered much of the material of the original DOJ investigation ( that paused the FEC investigation in 2017 beyond the time frame of FEC jurisdiction) that he then carted off to the Manhattan grand jury that indicted Trump, where DOJ had refused it. A DOJ investigation would fall under the president’s official duties, especially since it wasn’t conducted by an independent counsel. Therefore , wouldn’t all of DOJ evidence included in the indictment fall under presidential immunity? Colangelo could have performed as a whistleblower and taken it to Congress in its oversight responsibilities, they could have proceeded to develop a criminal referral, etc, but he took an official presidential action, the DOJ investigation, to a city court, it was Trump’s official work product. A municipal court is not part of te checks and balances of the federal system, Congress is.
Merchan and Biden now have something in common - they both shit their pants.
And that was why the FEC didn't pursue charges against Trump. They were guided by the jury verdict in the John Edwards case. Cash is fungible, so it's a bit of a misnomer to say one has a campaign account and a personal account. It's the classic example of paying from the left pocket or the right pocket.
But it goes directly to your sixth amendment concerns that Trump wasn't allowed to call the former head of the FEC to explain to the jury why monies can't be deemed to be campaign funds when there are multiple motives for spending the money.
Paying it after he was elected would still be a personal act and not covered by immunity.
-PJ
Evidence was presented that is now inadmissible under the new Supreme Court ruling.
The jury was tainted by the presentation of inadmissible evidence.
The verdict has to be thrown out.
(Of course, there are numerous other grounds for reversal.)
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