(New York) The Manhattan prosecutor’s office opened the way Tuesday for a new postponement of the sentence against Donald Trump in the case of hidden payments to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, a historic criminal case that the future president wants to see throw into oblivion.
Posted at 6:06 p.m.
Andréa BAMBINO
Agence France-Presse
The last word will go to New York judge Juan Mechan, who presided over this trial in the spring which resulted in the first criminal guilty verdict of a former president of the United States.
A decision from the magistrate was expected on Tuesday and could come at any time.
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, at the end of May, 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 to the pornographic film actress. 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 should first have been pronounced on July 11 by Judge Juan Merchan, which could range from a fine to prison – an unlikely scenario according to observers. But the magistrate agreed to postpone it for the first time to September 18, then to November 26, that is to say in a week, in order to study new appeals from the defense lawyers.
“Until the end of the mandate”
The latter now demand “the suspension and rejection [de l’affaire] to prevent President Trump,” who will take office on January 20, “from being prevented from governing.”
On Tuesday, Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg, a Democratic elected official, said in a court document that he would oppose an outright cancellation of the proceedings, but that this question deserved to be examined, which would provoke a new postponement of the sentence.
Alvin Bragg even believes that freezing all prosecutions “until the end of the presidential term” of 47e President of the United States must be an option to “consider”.
Donald Trump’s team immediately saw it as a “total and definitive victory”, believing that “this baseless trial is frozen”.
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 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.
“Voters’ 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 lawsuits 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,” he added.
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 analyzed on his Sidebars blog.
Since he was elected, Donald Trump has promised to appoint three of his personal lawyers to key positions in the Justice Department, including Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who defended him at the New York trial.
