A New York judge must rule Tuesday on whether to drop or freeze charges against President-elect Donald Trump in the case of hidden payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, after a historic conviction in spring.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday they will oppose President-elect Trump’s attempt to throw out his criminal conviction in the case, ABC News and CNN reported.
However, they also told the judge that they did not object to the case being stayed.
This case is the only one in which a criminal trial took place against the Republican, out of the four in which he was charged while being a candidate in the November 5 presidential election which he won, an unprecedented scenario in American history.
After six weeks of debate, on May 30, a jury of 12 citizens unanimously found Donald Trump guilty of 34 crimes of accounting falsification to hide from voters the payment of $130,000 made to the porn star. The goal was to prevent a sex scandal from breaking out at the very end of his first victorious campaign in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.
The sentence, which can range from a fine to prison, should first have been pronounced on July 11 by judge Juan Merchan, but the magistrate agreed to postpone it for the first time to September 18, then to November 26, that is to say after the election, in order to study new appeals from defense lawyers.
“Exceptional circumstances”
Now elected President of the United States, Donald Trump could escape any sentence, at least until his departure from the White House in 2029.
According to emails made public by the court, the defense asked Judge Merchan “for suspension and dismissal [de l’affaire] to prevent President Trump from being prevented from governing.”
The Manhattan prosecutor’s office conceded that the “circumstances [étaient] “exceptional” and that it was necessary to find a “balance” between respect for “a guilty verdict of a jury after a trial” and “the presidential office”.
Even before the election of Donald Trump, his lawyers had requested the cancellation of the procedure, after a decision by the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, which considerably extended presidential immunity on 1is last July.
This appeal, on which Judge Merchan must also rule, was filed 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).
Donald Trump is already certain of being able to bury the prosecutions initiated by the federal courts, in particular the heaviest on his alleged illegal attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“Voter’s Verdict”
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.
But observers still call on the judge and the prosecution to throw in the towel.
“The ultimate democratic verdict on [toutes] these prosecutions was returned by the voters,” wrote in the New York Times US Supreme Court lawyer Thomas Goldstein.
“Despite the prosecutions, more than 75 million people […] decided to send him back to the White House,” added this author, who runs the blog SCOTUSblog.
But for former prosecutor Randall Eliason, “the election should not prevent the sentence from falling, in the same way that criminal trials did not prevent the election of Trump.”
“The judge can craft a sentence that will not interfere with his presidential duties. From a judicial and historical point of view, it is important that the criminal proceedings come to an end,” he adds on his Sidebars blog.
Since he was elected, Donald Trump has promised to appoint three of his personal lawyers, including Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who defended him at the New York trial, to key positions at the Justice Department.
