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Void, mistrial, or delay?
by John Klar
Manhattan prosecutors agreed on July 2 to delay the sentencing of Donald Trump for his conviction in New York on 34 felony counts relating to allegedly fraudulent characterizations of hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. Pending consideration by trial judge Juan M. Merchan of briefs and oral arguments by both sides, the scheduled July 11 sentencing is set for Sept. 18, beyond the July 15-18 Republican National Convention, at which Trump is expected to be formally nominated as the GOP’s candidate for president in 2024. This dramatic pause in the otherwise relentless pursuit of Trump arose from a game-changing US Supreme Court decision the day before.
New York Convictions Imperiled
The Supreme Court’s surprising July 1 ruling in Trump v. United States threw a radioactive monkey wrench into the best-laid plans of New York Attorney General Alvin Bragg. The Supreme Court’s holding in Trump applied to a four-count indictment of the former president for alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election “by spreading knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the collecting, counting, and certifying of the election results.” However, by laying out novel grounds for broad presidential immunity, the decision directly impacted Bragg’s New York case convicting The Donald.
Trump v. United States held that a former president is subject to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his core constitutional authority, presumptive immunity (rebuttable by sufficient state evidence) for all official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts. Trump’s liberal critics claim his alleged crimes in the hush money case constituted unofficial acts prior to his election as POTUS: Both prosecution and defense are toiling away drafting briefs for Merchan addressing this pivotal distinction.
However, the implications of Trump for the highly controversial New York cases extend to evidence presented to the jury in Trump’s convictions concerning “official acts,” which have now been deemed inadmissible even in an otherwise proper criminal prosecution. Ironically, the New York cases are in dire jeopardy because Merchan and the prosecution aggressively permitted evidence of Trump’s official acts to be presented to the jury despite strident, timely objections by defense counsel.
Requesting a delay of the scheduled July 11 sentencing in a letter to the court, Trump’s defense counsel argued:
“As explained below, the Trump decision confirmed the defense position that DANY [District Attorney New York] should not have been permitted to offer evidence at trial of President Trump’s official acts … [O]n March 7, 2024, President Trump filed a motion in limine to preclude evidence of his official acts based on the presidential immunity doctrine. In that filing, we objected to anticipated testimony from certain potential witnesses, evidence of President Trump’s social media posts and public statements, and a 2018 filing with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). We also requested an adjournment of the trial date because the Supreme Court had granted certiorari in Trump on February 28, 2024, and had agreed to hear argument on April 25, 2024.”
Merchan denied the motion and adjournment and “noted” defense counsel objections when presidential immunity concerns were again raised during the trial. Had the court waited as requested or excluded official-acts evidence upon which Trump’s defense team now avers the DANY “placed highly prejudicial emphasis,” the conviction of Trump on 34 felony counts would be untainted.
What The New York Times called “likely to be the only moment of criminal accountability for the twice-impeached and four-time indicted former president” is now a moment likely never to pass. Even if the alleged mischaracterizations of hush money payments are not voided by Trump’s “official acts” immunity, the New York case will almost certainly be vacated as a mistrial because substantial evidence was brought forward that was squarely within the “official acts” category prohibited by the Trump decision.
The Death of Biden Lawfare?
With sentencing kicked beyond the GOP convention and the evidentiary foundations of Trump’s New York convictions kicked from underneath Merchan, a retrial seems moot – what point is a pre-election witch hunt after the election intended to be despoiled by said witch hunt? What many have called political lawfare by Bragg is irrevocably shredded by the highest court of the land’s pronouncements in Trump.
Many left-leaning pundits have begun clamoring that Trump will employ the expansive new presidential immunity enunciated by Trump to target his enemies, deport immigrants, or otherwise act with impunity as America’s dictator-king. Interestingly, this appears to regard Trump’s November win as a sure thing. It also ignores the implications of the Trump decision for Joe Biden.
In her lengthy, Trump-condemning dissent, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson) accused the majority of placing former presidents “beyond the reach of the federal criminal laws for any abuse of official power”:
“Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today …
“In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”
Trump No Longer a Felon?
His opponents accuse Biden of being implicated in illegally pressuring social media empires to censor Americans’ free speech, graft in Ukraine, family corruption and influence-peddling, and mishandling of high-security public documents. Whether he is competent to stand trial following the Special Counsel Robert Hur investigation is now irrelevant: He is immune. Sotomayor and the liberal chatterers apparently do not perceive how much criminal cover the Trump decision affords POTUS Biden. Furthermore, the Trump decision will squarely protect Biden from alleged retaliatory prosecution by the 45th president if and when he reclaims the Oval Office in November.
Those who pursued Trump like rabid piranhas now hold an empty toolbox. Any conviction of the former president for mishandling of documents is unlikely post-Trump, as are any convictions for the various lawfare machinations conjured against him this election year (and boasted about by Biden during the recent debate).
It seems entirely possible that Donald Trump will not be a felon for long.
The author is a Brookfield best-selling author, lawyer, farmer and pastor.
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Categories: Commentary, Court, National/International News
looks like the pony just kicked the dog in the head/// hope every one enjoyed the show the last few years brought to you by tel.////// lie.///// vision.///// waiting for the results on the investigation on the attempted murder of trump//// i am sure this will be under investigation for many years with no results reported////
Whatever Trump’s faults, the charges against him were absurdity.
Trump was never a felon and presidential immunity was always an unspoken fact. This ruling only brings that out in the open. Obama was accused of executing a US citizen without due process and he avoided prosecution by calling on Presidential immunity.
Past Presidents enjoy full security clearance at the highest level. Past presidents are afforded the privilege of daily security service briefings. This has always been true. It was true for both Bush presidents and it was true for the former head of the CIA, John Brennan. Given that, it is absurd to think that a past president would not have highly classified documents in his possession.
Also, nothing “expansive” happened. Presidents have the power of executive order. This has been used to deport, import and otherwise block or enable illegal migration as the president sees fit for a long time.
Biden is not off the hook. His corrupt actions were carried out when he was senator and Vice President. He did not have the same privileges as a former president and his son is definitely not immune from prosecution.
These low end law fare tactics seem to be Biden’s special skill. He encouraged Obama to invoke the Logan Act against Flynn to mess him up and he has been playing these toxic games since.
Donald J Trump can be crass and crude and a sinner in most people’s eyes, but from the Russia, Russia hoax, and the numerous ” bogus ” court cases, and we can all see these shams on legal and Constitutional fronts.
We all see that DemocRATS are running scared and are willing to do whatever to try and stay in power, even trying to drag their feckless senile candidate across the finish line, they’ll even stoop to an attempted assassination, from one of their inept fools, yes, a fool on a fool’s errand by listening to their rhetoric !!
If you want to talk real criminals, you only have to go to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Most of the un-convicted felons and co-conspiritors reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
If I recall correctly, the Supreme Court decided another case very recently in which it held that someone can’t be convicted of a charge in criminal court unless the jury is unanimous in its verdict.
This decision would therefore seem to affirm that the “conviction” of President Trump by a Manhattan jury should be set aside, given Judge Merchan’s jury instructions that the jury need not be unanimous on President Trump’s guilt on any specific charge. Rather, Merchan instructed them that, in effect, if they thought President Trump was guilty of *any* of the charges, that would be good enough.
Therefore, shouldn’t Judge Merchan’s “creative interpretation” of the law be enough in and of itself to throw the entire trial out?
Seems that way to me.
Jack Smith – Done. Fani “Cash G” Willis – Done. Sentencing hearing July 11 – didn’t happen. Take him out and not to lunch – DEI hires and Kim Cheatle – going, going, soon to be gone. Mainscream[sic] media lies – Exposed. Langley – pulling their implants out of their head. The Biden got the coof – done? Jack Black cancelled tour, future events and under deportation threat – hahahahahah.
Not spiking the football yet. The game is not over and the war is far from over. In grid-iron fashion, the ball is being advanced, first and ten, closing in toward the goal line. Yet, God’s Army will perform as if we are at the 50 yard line, third down.
And Governor Phil Scott finds himself facing the biggest political decision in his lifetime. I say go for it Phil, nobody has ever been shot for switching parties, especially from Republican to Socialist Democrat.
All the folks screaming about threats to democracy seem to have no problem with political lawfare being waged against their opponents. Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress yet no legal action were initiated the same apples to the current Attorney General. Millions of people illegally present in this country are not being prosecuted. Yet ” no one is above the law” is the mantra espoused selextively as an expident political tool. Far worse is the fabrication of crimes coupled will a willingly compliant media in efforts to politically and personally harm Mr. Trump and those who supported him!!