Elected to the White House, will Donald Trump escape a sentence in the affair of hidden payments to porn star Stormy Daniels? A judge, who was to rule Tuesday on the legality of his criminal conviction, postponed his decision until November 19.
New York Judge Juan Merchan was expected to issue his written ruling on Tuesday on a defense request to quash the entire proceeding, after the Federal Supreme Court in Washington significantly expanded presidential immunity on July 1.
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 according to email exchanges made public by the court, the defense also requested a freezing of the procedure, “and the final dismissal of the case”, to take into account the election to the White House of the Republican.
“Exceptional circumstances”
“The prosecution recognizes that these are exceptional circumstances,” conceded prosecutor Matthew Colangelo in an email on Sunday.
The judge postponed his decision until November 19 at the earliest.
Donald Trump intends to get rid of this file by returning to the White House.
And “even if (judge) Merchan pronounces a sentence” as planned on November 26, “his execution, whether prison, home detention, 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.
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 on the contrary 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.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
