Posted on 07/02/2024 8:57:06 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s sentencing in his New York hush money case may be postponed from next week in light of Monday’s Supreme Court immunity ruling, with the Manhattan district attorney saying he is not opposed to a delay requested by Trump’s lawyers so they can seek to vacate his conviction.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office noted in a letter to the court Tuesday that sentencing would have to be delayed from July 11 for the defense to make its case about how the Supreme Court’s decision could affect Trump’s state court prosecution.
Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records was based in part on evidence of meetings and communications that occurred while he was president.
In a historic and far-reaching decision Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, and that evidence cannot be used to prove alleged private criminal activity if that evidence is part of a president performing his official duties.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has previously ruled that Trump’s conduct in the falsifying records case has nothing to do with his official duties as president, a decision Merchan made when rejecting a request by Trump’s lawyers to postpone the trial until after the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity. The Supreme Court ruling was sparked by a different Trump criminal case, his federal election-interference trial in D.C. But it may impact his other cases as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It was moved from a week before the RNC Convention to a week after.
They don’t need to keep him off the campaign trail while Joe is the candidate. They need him sidelined after Joe is replaced. The DNC will meet Aug 19. That’s about the time the sentencing will take place.
EC
This will end any dreams the RINOs had of using Trump’s imprisonment as a pretext to cram Birdbrain down our throats at the convention.
Non disclosure agreements are legal. Done all the time. The story had been out for years and effect on election already factored in. Even if it were to enhance image for election rather than to protect Melania from pain as Cohen testified that is not illegal. The whole case is bogus for many add’l reasons.
The immunity decision just gives the case one more blow since presidential conversations were illegally entered into the court testimony.
Not to mention the blabbing juror/ mistrial we have heard nothing further on.
The Court’s decision, written by Roberts, specifically said immunity does not carry to acts prior to taking office, personal acts committed while in office (That’s why Grant got a traffic ticket of sorts), or acts committed after leaving office. Also, if the president is impeached, charges could be levied with regard to why he was impeached.
Any competent lawyer would argue that though President Trump, though in a position of immunity, was discussing a prior criminal activity, in effect a furtherance of that criminal activity, thus not protected, and the lawyer would be correct.
Again, before I am attacked, I am not saying that is what happened. I don’t believe Trump is guilty of anything in the Bragg case. It is unclear to anyone precisely of what he was convicted, even to the jury.
In effect there is no crime. No one has EVER been convicted of this and no one else ever will be convicted of this. It is arbitrary and capricious.
The dissenting opinion of the Supreme Court’s three stooges leads off with a picket sign slogan. “No one is above the law.”...Other than, of course. themselves as judges, DAs, governors performing official duties, congress folks free to defame from the well, etc, all of whom enjoy the same immunity the Supreme Court reiterated the President has in performance of official duties. Apparently, led by the wise latina freshly back from crying in her chambers, they shepardized this case precedent from stacks of picket signs rather than stacks case law and the actual Constitution.
But the payments began after Trump became President. The supposed illegal bit was that the hush money was to affect the outcome of the election. But no money was paid out prior to the election, so no hush money, so no illegality. This whole thing was a sham. It doesn't matter if it was personal or official, no illegal act happened.
It totally guts the “hush money” verdict and the case will be explicitly overturned on appeal for that alone.
Judge Merchan made a huge mistake in his jury instructions in his desperation to get Trump. This was probably unnecessary because the jury was obviously chomping at the bit to convict Trump of just about anything the judge put in front of the.
And it almost looks like the drafting of Supreme Court ruling had one eye on the Merchan jury instructions because the case work is directly applicable to overturning the Trump verdict.
........I believe Merchan is looking for a way out because the fire is getting too hot under his ass. He will use the immunity ruling OR the misbehaving juror to declare a mistrial.
I believe A LOT of the heat is coming from the few but powerful democrats that KNOW this Merchan/Brag SCAM is hurting the democrats more than helping them.
The problem I have with this “No one is above the law” statement is it has IN PRACTICE become a cliche.
Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro are jailed for contempt of Congress while people like Merrick Garland, Eric Holder and Lois Lerner get away scot free for the same offense.
Clearly there are people ABOVE and BELOW the law ( Trump being one of the latter ).
What power can Congress exercise to punish these Democrats? None.
All they can do is whine and write angry letters.
“........I believe Merchan is looking for a way out because the fire is getting too hot under his ass. He will use the immunity ruling OR the misbehaving juror to declare a mistrial.
I believe A LOT of the heat is coming from the few but powerful democrats that KNOW this Merchan/Brag SCAM is hurting the democrats more than helping them.”
I go by what I’ve seen them do in the past. Even if or when they know they’re wrong, they always double down on the political targeting stuff. I don’t expect them to change now (or ever).... unfortunately.
But the indictments against him were for transactions that were dated while he was President.
From NPR The 34 felony counts in Trump’s hush money trial (h/t FReeper Brian Griffin):
COUNT VERDICT BUSINESS RECORD DATE
1 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust Feb. 14, 2017
2 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, bearing voucher number 842457 Feb. 14, 2017
3 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, bearing voucher number 842460 Feb. 14, 2017
4 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust Account, bearing check number 000138 Feb. 14, 2017
5 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust March 16, 2017
6 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, bearing voucher number 846907 March 17, 2017
7 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust Account, bearing check number 000147 March 17, 2017
8 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump April 13, 2017
9 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 858770 June 19, 2017
10 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump account, bearing check number 002740 June 19, 2017
11 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump May 22, 2017
12 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 855331 May 22, 2017
13 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump account, bearing check number 002700 May 23, 2017
14 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump June 16, 2017
15 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 858772 June 19, 2017
16 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump account, bearing check number 002741 June 19, 2017
17 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump July 11, 2017
18 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 861096 July 11, 2017
19 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump account, bearing check number 002781 July 11, 2017
20 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump Aug. 1, 2017
21 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 863641 Aug. 1, 2017
22 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump account, bearing check number 002821 Aug. 1, 2017
23 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump Sept. 11, 2017
24 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 868174 Sept. 11, 2017
25 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump account, bearing check number 002908 Sept. 12, 2017
26 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump Oct. 18, 2017
27 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 872654 Oct. 18, 2017
28 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump account, bearing check number 002944 Oct. 18, 2017
29 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump Nov. 20, 2017
30 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 876511 Nov. 20, 2017
31 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump account, bearing check number 002980 Nov. 21, 2017
32 Guilty Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of Donald J. Trump Dec. 1, 2017
33 Guilty Entry in the Detail General Ledger for Donald J. Trump, bearing voucher number 877785 Dec. 1, 2017
34 Guilty Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump account, bearing check number 003006 Dec. 5, 2017
I agree that even though the transactions were dated while he was president, I think SCOTUS ruled that running for office is not an official Presidential act, so immunity still wouldn't apply.
However...
SCOTUS also remanded back to lower courts to review the official versus personal nature of all the charges, so it's possible that Bragg is saying that the New York case didn't do this (even if it appears to be obvious) and that moving to sentencing before doing this is premature. I could be wrong here.
Others have also noted that the payments to Cohen were made monthly throughout the entire year of 2017, so how were they applicable to when Trump was running for President in 2016? Were they payments for personal legal services in 2017 or for personal legal services that were related to official acts (e.g., researching ramifications resulting from official acts)? I know I'm stretching here...
I think the bottom line is that the Bragg case must do this review regardless. They may still reach the same conclusion that the case meets the SCOTUS test of non-official acts, but it will push sentencing back until at least after the convention.
-PJ
Update:
Jonathan Turley on Fox News just said that the problem with the trial was that Bragg put Hope Hicks (White House Director of Strategic Communications at the time) on the witness stand to talk about President Trump's demeanor in the Oval Office while he was signing the checks. Those communications are presumptively immune.
Turley then said that the prosecutors can argue a "harmless error" and that even if Hopes' testimony was removed it wouldn't change the outcome of the trial.
-PJ
They used Hope Hicks testimony about Trumps state of mind when he was president. That testimony is now defined as impermissible and taints the case.
They used Trumps tweets as evidence about Cohen. The tweets are immune and cannot be used in criminal evidence. The case will be appealed and thrown out based on the tweets being used as evidence in a criminal trial. The tweets were declared official statements when Trump wanted to delete some and remove people from his tweetery.
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