[ad_1]
“These are unprecedented circumstances,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo wrote in an email to the court.
He said prosecutors must consider how to balance the “competing interests” of a jury verdict and the presidency.
Trump’s attorney, Emil Bove, meanwhile, argued that the case must be dismissed entirely “to avoid unconstitutional obstruction of President Trump’s ability to govern.”
The messages were part of a chain of emails released Tuesday, as New York Judge Juan M. Merchan was scheduled to rule on an earlier request by Trump’s lawyers to overturn his conviction on a different ground — the US Supreme Court’s ruling this summer on presidential immunity.
Instead, Merchan told Trump’s lawyers he would halt the proceedings and delay a ruling until at least Nov. 19 so prosecutors could suggest a path forward. Both sides agreed to a one-week delay.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung announced the delay. He said in a statement that the president-elect’s victory makes it “very clear that the American people want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including this case, which should never have been started.”
Prosecutors declined to comment.
A jury convicted Trump in May of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 ($195,000) payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. The payment was to buy her silence about claims she had sex with Trump.
Trump says they did not have sex, denies any wrongdoing and claims the prosecution was a political tactic designed to hurt his final campaign. Trump is a Republican. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the case, is a Democrat, as is Merchan.
Just over a month after the ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that former presidents cannot be prosecuted for actions they took while running the country, and prosecutors cannot cite those actions even to support a case centered on purely personal conduct.
Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the silenced jury was given some evidence it should not have, such as Trump’s presidential financial record and testimony from some White House aides.
Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was only “a piece” of their case.
Trump’s criminal conviction was the first for any former president. Because of this, the 78-year-old faces the possibility of a fine, probation or up to four years in prison.
The case centered on how Trump reimbursed a personal attorney to pay Daniels.
The lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, paid the money. He later reimbursed him with a series of payments that Trump’s company recorded as legal fees. Trump, who was in the White House by then, signed most of the checks himself.
Prosecutors said the designation was intended to obscure the true purpose of the payments and help mask a broader effort to prevent voters from hearing unsavory claims about Trump during his first campaign.
Trump said Cohen was legitimately paid for legal services and that the Daniels story was suppressed to avoid embarrassing the Trump family, not to influence the electorate.
Trump was a private citizen, running a presidential campaign, when Cohen paid Daniels in October 2016. He was president when Cohen was reimbursed, and Cohen testified that they discussed the repayment arrangement in the Oval Office.
Trump has been fighting for months to overturn the ruling. While urging Merchan to overturn the conviction, the president-elect is also trying to move the case to federal court. Before the election, a federal judge repeatedly rejected the move, but Trump appealed.
Trump faces three other unrelated indictments in different jurisdictions.
But Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith is evaluating how to drop both the 2020 election meddling case and a separate classified documents case against Trump before he takes office, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. A long-standing Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s election interference case against Trump is largely on hold as he and other defendants appeal a judge’s decision to allow Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis to proceed with the prosecution.
[ad_2]