Hello Jean from Florida and Vinc’,
Declared the winner, Donald Trump intends to be protected from judicial proceedings. However, one last obstacle awaits him on November 26 in New York before his official return to the White House on January 20: the pronouncement of his sentence in the only one of his four criminal trials that his lawyers were unable to postpone until later. beyond 2024.
Found guilty on May 30 by the New York State courts of “Acgravated accounting falsification to conceal a plot to pervert the 2016 elections”In theory he faces up to four years in prison. This case concerns the payment of $130,000, disguised as legal fees, to porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence a sexual relationship in 2006, which Donald Trump denies.
But the hypothesis that Judge Juan Merchán would impose a prison sentence, in the case of a first criminal conviction, now seems very unlikely in the face of the insurmountable practical difficulties that the imprisonment of an elected president and then current president would pose.
As for the two federal proceedings against him, if Donald Trump’s legal horizon brightened spectacularly this summer, it now seems completely clear at least for the four years of his new term.
The Republican candidate said at the end of October that he wanted, if elected, “turns in two seconds” the special prosecutor in charge of these two cases, Jack Smith, appointed by the Minister of Justice of the current Democratic administration, Merrick Garland. The two cases investigated by the special counsel focus on Donald Trump’s allegedly illicit attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his withholding of classified documents after his departure from the White House.
Once again president, Donald Trump could appoint a new attorney general who would fire Jack Smith or simply order his Justice Department to drop the charges. Without waiting for the transfer of powers, the special prosecutor and the Ministry of Justice began talks on Wednesday with a view to stopping this procedure, several US media reported. But the department has adopted a policy for more than fifty years of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Prosecutions remain in Georgia, where Donald Trump is being prosecuted along with 14 other people for facts similar to those in his federal case in Washington, under a law in this key state on organized gang crime. In this case, which is stalled at least until next year, everything will depend on the decision of the state appeals court, which received a request from the defendant to withdraw from the prosecution.
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