Donald Trump and his famous pout, during his historic trial in New York.
AFP
Will Donald Trump escape a sentence in the case of hidden payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016? A judge rules Tuesday on the legality of his criminal conviction in this case, which the Republican hopes to get rid of permanently by returning to the White House.
New York Judge Juan Merchan is expected to issue his written ruling on a defense request to throw out the entire proceeding, after the US Supreme Court in Washington significantly expanded presidential immunity on July 1.
Donald Trump does not have to appear Tuesday.
The appeal was filed before his re-election on November 5, on the grounds that evidence used by the prosecution relates to official acts during the Republican’s first term in the White House (2017-2021).
But even if the judge rejects the request, the attacks on this trial, followed by the media around the world last spring, are far from over.
And “even if Judge Merchan pronounces a sentence” as planned on November 26, “his execution, whether prison, house arrest, community service or a fine, will have to wait until the appeals are exhausted and Trump is no longer in office,” in 2029, former prosecutor Randall Eliason wrote on his blog.
Indicted in four different criminal investigations, including one before federal justice in Washington for his allegedly illicit attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election, the Republican has succeeded for months in delaying the proceedings. His re-election now almost completely clears his judicial horizon.
Court of Opinion
According to several American media, special prosecutor Jack Smith, who investigated the case on the November 2020 election, and the Department of Justice, have initiated discussions with a view to stopping federal prosecutions, which Donald Trump could bury once at the White House on January 20, 2025.
This is not the case for the trial of the Stormy Daniels affair, which took place before the courts of the State of New York.
After six weeks of debate, a jury of 12 citizens found Donald Trump guilty of 34 accounting falsification offenses to hide from voters the payment of $130,000 to the X-rated movie star, in order to avoid a scandal. sexual at the very end of his 2016 presidential campaign, ultimately winning against Hillary Clinton.
The sentence, which can range from a fine to prison, should first have been pronounced on July 11 by the judge, but he agreed to postpone it for the first time to September 18, then to November 26, at the request Donald Trump’s lawyers.
All observers now expect that the defense will seek to have the charges dropped or at least the proceedings frozen, so as not to disrupt Donald Trump’s second term.
Donald Trump’s former Justice Minister, Bill Barr, called for all charges to be dropped, saying they had been “brought for political purposes and were widely publicized and dismissed in court.” public opinion.
In an editorial, the Kansas City Star instead called on Judge Merchan to do “the unthinkable, force an elected president to take the oath of office from a prison cell,” to send “an unequivocal message: the rule of law s ‘still applies in America’.
Science fiction in the eyes of former New York prosecutor and law professor at Pace University in New York, Bennett Gershman, because the sentence, if it involves prison, “will not be carried out on day it is pronounced, nor Trump handcuffed and taken to the cell.
(afp)
