The judge in the Stormy Daninels case announced this Friday that he was postponing indefinitely the sentencing of Donald Trump, found guilty last May of the 34 serious crimes with which he was accused. Judge Juan Merchan’s decision definitively freezes the resolution of the case and represents a new legal victory for the now president-elect. The only one of the early criminal cases against Trump that made it to trial before the election also ended in a deadlock.
Trump will assume the presidency of the United States on January 20 with strong condemnation, but without a decision on the penalty he will have to pay. For the Republican, the label of “convict” has never been a problem and it will be less so when he benefits from the protection granted by the presidency, which prevents him from judging a sitting president.
Merchan accepted Trump’s defense’s request to file a motion to dismiss the case, causing the judge to postpone without a new date the resolution of the sentence that the now president-elect would have to serve for his conviction. Initially, 26 Merchan was scheduled to deliver the verdict next Tuesday.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the case should be dismissed because its existence while he is president would cause “unconstitutional obstacles” to his ability to govern.
The decision comes after the prosecutor’s office appeared willing Tuesday to leave the case on hold until the tycoon completes his term, but declined to overturn the conviction. The judge also agreed to delay a decision on whether to apply presidential immunity to Trump in the case until the final appeals that both sides can make through Dec. 2 have been considered, although the tycoon’s defense requested it.
The Republican faces up to four years in prison for the crimes of which he was convicted, including forging legal documents for payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for his silence so that she would not explain not that they had sex. Since the falsified payment was made to avoid a scandal that could harm the mogul’s campaign in the 2016 elections, Trump committed a crime that violated campaign finance law.
Initially, Merchan had set November 12 as the deadline to rule on presidential immunity. But when the scheduled day arrived, the judge announced that he was postponing the date again until this Tuesday the 19th.
In September, the judge had already announced that he was also postponing the sentence in the Stormy Daniels case until after the November 5 elections and had set November 26 as the new date. The decision, as explained in the document presented, responded to the desire not to influence the possible outcome of the elections. Throughout the process, Trump used the trial to show himself as the victim of alleged political persecution.
The strategy of postponing criminal trials until after the election paid off: not only will Trump escape the penalty of conviction in the New York case, but the two federal cases will most likely be dismissed, while the lawsuit in the state of Georgia was dismissed. remained frozen for months.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith, in charge of the two federal cases – the classified Mar-a-Lago papers and the attempted assault on the Capitol – is already working to see how he will close both processes before Trump takes office. function. Once this is done, Pam Bondi, whom the Republican has appointed as his new attorney general, will have the power to revoke them if they have not been closed before.
