(Headline USA) Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is fighting to maintain President-elect Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in the porn-star trial he oversaw, despite the fact that Trump will soon be retaking the White House and is likely to see the case suspended indefinitely without sentencing.
Judge Juan Merchan was forced to delay Trump’s sentencing in the Manhattan criminal case last month after Trump’s sweeping electoral victory.
Merchan must now decide whether to toss Trump’s 34 felony counts of falsifying business records altogether or delay the case until Trump is out of office.
In a filing this week, Bragg’s office acknowledged Trump cannot be sentenced as president because of presidential immunity, but argued Merchan has alternative legal options to make sure Trump is eventually sentenced and potentially imprisoned.
“President-elect immunity does not exist. And even after the inauguration, defendant’s temporary immunity as the sitting President will still not justify the extreme remedy of discarding the jury’s unanimous guilty verdict and wiping out the already-completed phases of this criminal proceeding,” the Tuesday court filing from Bragg’s office states.
Bragg’s office said the case could be delayed until after Trump leaves office.
“[N]o principle of immunity precludes further proceedings before defendant’s inauguration,” it continues. “And even if judgment has not been entered at the time of defendant’s inauguration, there is no legal barrier to deferring sentencing until after defendant’s term of office concludes.”
Bragg’s office argued that delaying Trump’s sentencing until after he leaves office in 2029 will exempt the upcoming president “from any immediate obligations in this case during his time in office, while at the same time respecting the public interest in upholding the rule of law and preserving the meaningful aspects of the criminal process that have already taken place.”
Trump spokesman Steven Chueng slammed the filing as “a pathetic attempt to salvage the remains of an unconstitutional and politically motivated hoax.”
The rule of law “demands that it be immediately dismissed, as President Trump must be allowed to continue the presidential transition process, and execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this, or any other, witch hunt,” Cheung continued. “The sooner these cases end, the sooner our country can unite behind President Trump for the betterment of all Americans.”
