Judge Merchan grants Trump’s request to suspend court terms and sentencing

The Manhattan judge overseeing the trial of newly elected President Donald Trump agreed to grant a postponement of all deadlines related to the felony conviction proceedings against Trump in the final months before he takes office. up to four years in prison.

The judge overseeing the case, Judge Juan Merchan, granted the request, suspending all deadlines, including the November 26 sentencing date, to consider the consequences of his election as president.

Prosecutors had asked for a pause in the proceedings, which they said would allow them to better assess the impact of Trump’s new status as president-elect.

“The people agree that these are unprecedented circumstances,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said in a letter to Judge Merchan.

Trump’s lawyers, who filed a motion to dismiss the charges entirely, also supported the delay.

Trump was convicted in May by a Manhattan jury on 34 counts of falsifying company records, arising from a case involving payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

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Merchan agreed earlier this year to a four-month delay in the legal proceedings, delaying the next steps until after the 2024 presidential election.

He had set November 12 as a self-imposed deadline to decide how to proceed.

The decision comes after the the Supreme Court said in a July 1 ruling that presidents should enjoy presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for most actions taken as president.

Justices writing for a 4-3 majority said presidents are entitled to absolute immunity from any actions taken within the scope of “core constitutional powers” ​​as commander in chief.

A presumption of immunity also applies to other actions taken during their time in office, they said.

However, it is not clear whether a president should receive the same level of constitutional protection for state convictions, and the case has never been tested in court.

Trump officials on Tuesday praised the pause in the legal proceedings. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital that the pause “makes it abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including this case… so that we can unite our country and work together for the betterment of our nation.”

The November 12 deadline is separate from the sentencing hearing for the 34 convictions, which was previously set for November 26.

Rather, this was a self-imposed deadline by Merchan that allowed him to consider Trump’s claims of presidential immunity and whether the Supreme Court’s July ruling on the scope of immunity should apply at the state level.

Even if Trump’s convictions were upheld, the newly elected president has numerous avenues to appeal or have the charges against him dismissed before the Nov. 26 sentencing hearing — making it all but certain that he won’t serve time will get behind bars.

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The first would be moving the case from state to federal court — which Trump’s lawyers had tried and failed to do twice in the months leading up to the election. However, their request to take the case to federal court now carries more weight, given Trump’s status as president-elect.

If that fails, Trump’s lawyers will likely appeal the convictions ahead of his sentencing hearing, using the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling as a reason to have the charges dismissed.

They will also likely use the immunity claim to throw out parts of the evidence used by prosecutors in the New York case, including testimony from former White House communications director Hope Hicks.

Even if all this fails, legal analysts and former prosecutors have roundly rejected the idea that Trump would face prison time for his convictions.

“Understand that Trump is not going to jail even if Merchan hands down a prison sentence. Although the charges are felonies, they are not serious enough under New York law to warrant immediate detention; Trump will be granted bail pending his appeal,” said Andrew McCarthy, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote in an op-ed last week for Fox News Digital.

Had Merchan taken action to keep the convictions intact, he could have sought additional guidance from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, including on whether Trump should be subject to state convictions as a sitting president — a question that was never tested.

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Trump’s legal team would almost certainly have appealed any conviction the Supreme Courtif necessary.

Trump is shielded from federal convictions under the Justice Department’s longstanding policy that bars U.S. attorneys from prosecuting a sitting president.

However, this precedent has never been applied to state convictions, giving Judge Merchan slightly broader discretion in deciding how to proceed.

His decision comes days after Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a motion to throw out all deadlines in the 2020 election interference case against President-elect Trump in Washington, DC.

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Smith had been tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to investigate both Trump and his allies’ alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and Trump’s keeping of supposedly classified documents at his residence in Florida after leaving the White House. in 2020.

Although these charges have not yet been officially dropped, the special prosecutor appears to be moving in that direction. Smith said his team plans to issue an updated report on the official status of the case against Trump on December 2.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr told Fox News Digital that state and local prosecutors and judges should move away from the “spectacle” of prosecuting the president-elect.