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In a letter to Judge Juan Merchan, the district attorney’s office also acknowledged that Trump is unlikely to be convicted “until the end of the defendant’s upcoming presidential term.” But prosecutors say Trump’s felony conviction should stand.
A source close to the district attorney’s office said a four-year hiatus has been opened in the case.
The developments on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) represent an unprecedented historic reversal for Trump’s legal and political fortunes.
A year ago, Trump faced four different indictments. Now, as he prepares to retake the White House, the strategy of Trump’s lawyers to try to push all of his cases past the 2024 election is proving very successful, with two federal cases set to end, a Georgia case long on hold and a New York case poised to end indefinitely without judgment.
Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records for paying his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to cover a secret $US130,000 ($200,000) payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to prevent her from speaking out about an alleged affair before the 2016 election. (Trump denied the affair.)
In a letter to Merchan, the Manhattan district attorney argued that the judge should not throw out Trump’s conviction.
“No current law establishes that the President’s temporary immunity from prosecution requires a waiver after the trial a criminal proceeding that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution and which is based on official conduct to which the defendant is not immune either,” wrote the County State Attorney’s Office.
In a statement, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the filing “a complete and final victory for President Trump.”
Merchan was scheduled to decide last week whether to overturn the conviction based on this year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Trump should receive broad immunity for official acts during his tenure and that official acts cannot be used as evidence in a criminal trial.
But the district attorney’s office acknowledged the “unprecedented circumstances” of Trump’s election to the presidency, and Merchan’s sentencing was delayed.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the ruling should be overturned both because of the ruling on presidential immunity and because he is preparing to return to the White House.
“The stay and removal are necessary to avoid unconstitutional obstruction of President Trump’s ability to govern,” Trump’s lawyer, Emil Bove, wrote in emails exchanged with the court and the district attorney’s office this month.
Trump has tapped Bove to fill a top job at the Justice Department in his new administration.
Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former prosecutor, said Trump’s delayed sentencing was an inevitable outcome of his election.
“The clock is up,” Honig said. “We like to say that no person is above the law in this country, but the fact is that one person mostly is, and that is the president, because of the immunity decision and because of the DOJ’s policy” that the current president cannot be prosecuted.
“It’s just the cold, hard reality of how our system works,” he added.
The sentencing was postponed twice before the election
Trump was indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg early last year, the first of four indictments he will face in 2023.
It would ultimately be the only case against Trump to go to trial: the federal election subversion case was delayed indefinitely by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling; Trump-appointed federal judge dismisses classified documents case; and the Georgia case faltered under pressure from Trump and his co-defendants to remove the Fulton County district attorney from the case.
A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts after a two-month trial.
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But Trump’s sentencing, originally scheduled for July, was delayed twice after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling prompted Trump’s lawyers to file a motion to overturn the verdict. That effort, along with other tactics, including seeking to move the case to federal court, further delayed the proceedings and prompted Merchan to push the sentencing and immunity decision until after the November election.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the conviction should be thrown out because the district attorney’s office relied on evidence related to Trump’s official acts as president during his first term, which should not have been presented to the jury at trial.
Bragg’s office said Trump’s conviction should stand and that the evidence presented at trial was “overwhelming.”
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