New York Judge Juan Merchan — who is overseeing President-elect Donald Trump’s business records case — agreed to freeze the case until Nov. 19.
There was to be a hearing Tuesday for Merchan to rule on whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision in July means the guilty verdict on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records should be dismissed.
SCOTUS ruled that official acts taken while president are presumed to be immune from prosecution. Private actions are not.
In 2016 prior to the November election, then-Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen made a $130,000 “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels as part of a non-disclosure agreement. The Trump Organization then paid the lawyer a series of payments in 2017, while Trump was president, that a jury determined were, in part, to reimburse Cohen for his payment to Daniels.
Law and Crime noted, “In previous court filings, Trump attorneys Emil Bove and Todd Blanche have argued that trial testimony relating to Trump’s communications with then-White House staffers — former Communications Director Hope Hicks and former Director of White House Operations Madeleine Westerhout — should have been shielded from jurors.”
Merchan granted a request Tuesday by Manhattan prosecutors to delay a ruling on the immunity issue until they have time to respond to Trump’s attorneys’ call for the case to be dismissed given their client’s electoral win.
“The stay, and dismissal, are necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern,” Bove wrote in an email to the judge.
Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs’ office, concurred that there should be a delay in order to respond to Trump’s new status as president-elect.
“The People agree that these are unprecedented circumstances and that the arguments raised by defense counsel in correspondence to the People on Friday require careful consideration to ensure that any further steps in this proceeding appropriately balance the competing interests of (1) a jury verdict of guilt found following trial that has the presumption of regularity, and (2) the Office of the President,” Colangelo wrote Merchan.
Should the hush money case be thrown out?
Yes: 93% (14 Votes)
No: 7% (1 Votes)
Sentencing in the case is slated for Nov. 26.
The Hill reported that Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that Trump was elected “with an overwhelming mandate to Make America Great Again.”
“It is now abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including this case, which should have never been filed, so we can, as President Trump said in his historic victory speech, unify our country and work together for the betterment of our nation,” Cheung said.
Former U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy responded to Merchan’s Tuesday ruling, telling Fox News the case “was really only brought in the first place to try to prevent [Trump] from being elected. And since it didn’t succeed, I think should land on the dustbin of history.”
McCarthy further contended that Merchan knew what he was doing by allowing prosecutors to bring testimony by Hicks and Westerhout to the jurors, given the Supreme Court was poised to rule on the immunity issue soon after the May verdict in the case.
“They were playing with fire by allowing this evidence into the case. He’s the guy who let it in,” McCarthy said referring to Merchan.
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Further, he contended, “The fact that they brought it seven or eight years after most of the facts in the case happened and it was brought by a district attorney who ordinarily pleads felonies down to misdemeanors, here he took a nothing and blew it into 34 felonies. The whole thing was so unabashedly political.”
McCarthy argued in a Monday piece in National Review that for all practical purposes, the case is either dead or will be dormant for the next four years while Trump is in office.
He cited the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause barring a state from interfering in the president’s ability to govern.
McCarthy also expects the two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith to go away.
That would leave only the election interference case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, which has been paused indefinitely while a state appeals court considers whether it should proceed.
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