(Headline USA) Corrput Manhattan judge Juan Merchan delayed a key ruling on Tuesday in President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing over his highly-dubious felony convictions in a lawfare case involving the misreporting of campaign expenditures in 2016.
Outrage over the perversion of justice enabled by Merchan—whose daughter, Loren, actively colluded with Vice President Kamala Harris and other top Democrats to defeat Trump—may have helped to fuel the massive red wave that elevated Trump back into the presidency last week.
While New York law requires that the judge, facing such a conflict of interests, recuse himself from the case, Merchan brazenly forged ahead, issuing a number of suspect decisions, including a controversial gag order that prevented Trump from criticizing key figures in the case while on the campaign trail.
Voters saw through the ruse, which even prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office dubbed the “franken-trial” due to the loose interpretations of law being used to achieve the predetermined legal outcome. Bragg, who was heavily funded by billionaire George Soros, was elevated into the job in large part by running on a “get Trump” platform.
Top Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and failed 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton, have similarly been accused of fudging campaign finance expenditures—the underlying crime for which Trump stood accused—only to receive a slap on the wrist by the Federal Election Commission.
Trump, instead, was slapped with 34 felony counts for falsifying business records, giving his leftist adversaries a major talking point and putting the prospect that Merchan might try to jail the GOP candidate into the realm of possibility.
Following the election last Tuesday, however, Trump lawyer Emil Bove said throwing out the case was “necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern.”
Merchan had been set to rule Tuesday on their earlier request to throw out Trump’s conviction for a different reason—because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this summer on presidential immunity.
Instead, Merchan told Trump’s lawyers he’d halt proceedings and delay the ruling until at least Nov. 19 so that prosecutors can give their view of what to do in light of the former and future president’s election win last week.
Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors had agreed in recent days to the one-week postponement, according to emails filed in court Tuesday.
Because of the “unprecedented circumstances,” prosecutors needed to consider how to balance the “competing interests” of the jury’s verdict and the presidency, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo wrote.
The wording echoed the language used by special counsel Jack Smith in his recent request to delay further proceedings in a parallel federal case over Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 uprising. That case is likely to be promptly dismissed by the incoming Trump Justice Department, and many of the more than 1,400 J6 political dissidents already convicted for participation in the election-related protest were hoping to receive presidential pardons.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said the president-elect’s win made it “abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including this case, which should have never been filed.”
A jury convicted Trump in May of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in 2016 in order to quell politically—and personally—damaging allegations of a romantic affair.
Trump says they didn’t have sex, denies any wrongdoing and maintains the prosecution was a political tactic meant to harm his latest campaign.
Just over a month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for actions they took in the course of running the country, and prosecutors can’t cite those actions even to bolster a case centered on purely personal conduct.
Trump’s lawyers cited that ruling to argue that the jury got some evidence it shouldn’t have, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form and testimony from some White House aides.
Prosecutors disagreed and claimed the evidence in question was only “a sliver” of their case.
Trump’s criminal conviction was a first for any ex-president. It left the 78-year-old facing the possibility of a fine, probation or up to four years in prison.
Trump has been fighting for months to overturn the verdict. While urging Merchan to nix the conviction, the president-elect also has been trying to move the case to federal court. Before the election, a federal judge repeatedly said no to the move, but Trump has appealed.
Meanwhile, a Georgia election interference case against Trump is largely on hold while Trump and other defendants appeal a judge’s ruling allowing the top prosecutor on that case, Fani Willis, to continue prosecuting it.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
