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*UPDATE* Judge Merchan Moves Trump Sentencing to Sept. 18 ‘if Such is Still Necessary’

*UPDATE* Judge Merchan Moves Trump Sentencing to Sept. 18 ‘if Such is Still Necessary’

Trump asked Judge Merchan to delay the sentencing due to the SCOTUS decision on presidential immunity.

*UPDATE 3:18 PM*

Judge Merchan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for September 18. He said he would rule on the impact of SCOTUS’s immunity ruling on the case on September 6.

———–

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office agreed to delay former President Donald Trump’s July 11 sentencing for the hush money case.

Judge Merchan will have the final say.

Trump asked Judge Merchan to review the SCOTUS decision on presidential immunity and its impact on the case:

Although the Manhattan case does not center on Mr. Trump’s presidency or official acts — but rather personal activity during his campaign — his lawyers argued on Monday that prosecutors had built their case partly on evidence from his time in the White House. And under the Supreme Court’s new ruling, prosecutors not only cannot charge a president for any official acts, but also cannot cite evidence involving official acts to bolster other accusations.

In a letter to the judge who presided over the trial, Juan M. Merchan, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the conviction should be set aside. They also asked Justice Merchan to postpone the sentencing while he considered their request.

Trump’a lawyers wrote: “At trial and during summation, DANY placed highly prejudicial emphasis on official-acts evidence, including witness testimony regarding events in the Oval Office that DANY described as devastating, social media posts during President Trump’s first term, and toll records reflecting calls involving President Trump while he was in office in 2017.”

The DA’s office responded: “Although we believe defendant’s arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion.”

The office requested a July 24 deadline.

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Comments

After soaking his finger for quite a few months, Al decides to check the wind with it.

    Paula in reply to scooterjay. | July 2, 2024 at 12:09 pm

    I’m not going to tell you where his head has been.

      JohnSmith100 in reply to Paula. | July 2, 2024 at 2:14 pm

      Skin tone gives some indication.

      AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to Paula. | July 2, 2024 at 3:38 pm

      I’ll say it.

      Bragg has had his head up the ass of the Biden Administration in a concerted effort to charge President Trump for Campaign Finance Crimes that even the FEC and the former DA refused to consider.

      In addition, Bragg and the moron judge decided to prevent Trump from presenting witness testimony that “hush money” for a sex act that didn’t occur (per the tart in question) is not a crime.

      So much so, that the DA had to manufacture a secondary crime that was so poor that the judge allowed the jurors to select from a menu of potential crimes where Trump was denied due process.

      And that is why Bragg’s eyes are brown, and his neck has a ring around it.

      4fun in reply to Paula. | July 2, 2024 at 9:50 pm

      Let joe sniff his head, see how he reacts.

IMO this isn’t a win.

This is them acknowledging that actually putting him in prison would be political suicide, so they’re going to delay it AND THE GAG ORDER as long as possible.

    Paddy M in reply to Olinser. | July 2, 2024 at 12:43 pm

    That was my initial thought as well. The guilty verdicts backfired and Brandon’s dementia was even obvious to the smooth brains last week. Sentencing Trump to prison would likely lead to a landslide election which would overcome the ability for the communists to cheat.

      henrybowman in reply to Paddy M. | July 2, 2024 at 3:00 pm

      My impression is that Bragg sees CW II coming a bit too ahead of schedule, and isn’t enthusiastic about making the strategic targets list.

      Concise in reply to Paddy M. | July 2, 2024 at 6:52 pm

      They never know when to stop. Like a bad movie searching for an ending.

    Subotai Bahadur in reply to Olinser. | July 2, 2024 at 8:07 pm

    In addition, if he is actually imprisoned and something happens to him, there will be no forgiveness.

    Subotai Bahadur

    diver64 in reply to Olinser. | July 3, 2024 at 5:45 am

    I think your right. This allows the gag order to continue into September instead of being over next week. I look for Trumps lawyers to now appeal to higher courts the unconstitutional gag order barring him from speaking about the trial.

concur this is not a win
Better for the Dems to get sentencing in sept or oct due to optics.

    AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to Joe-dallas. | July 2, 2024 at 3:40 pm

    The proverbial “October Surprise.”

    No matter, I am voting for the convicted felon, not the desiccated meat puppet.

    Paula in reply to Joe-dallas. | July 2, 2024 at 4:34 pm

    “In September President Trump will be the legally nominated Republican candidate for President. An immigrant from another country who becomes an “acting” interim judge appointed by other judges to fill a temporary shortage in a county court who then jails the leading candidate in the next Presidential election is not going to be received well.”
    (quoted from comments on Freerepublic.com)

destroycommunism | July 2, 2024 at 12:24 pm

its alllll based on when they can do the most damage

lefty is a criminal by nature

I didn’t understand this motion and reflexively didn’t think it would be beneficial for Trump particularly after reading some legal commentary last night. But, I think that’s wrong. They’re moving for a mistrial because Marchan did something that Roberts expressly prohibited in his majority opinion yesterday, allowed the ‘jury to consider official presidential acts by Trump in deciding his guilt or innocence for private acts.’ That’s no bueno.

Here’s an X-post from a retired lawyer explaining the complexities of the issue and why it’s important. It’s worth a read.

https://x.com/KingMakerFT/status/1808171100724945236

    stevewhitemd in reply to TargaGTS. | July 2, 2024 at 3:38 pm

    Yup. The key two sentences from KingMakerFT:

    In the Supreme Court’s immunity opinion, Chief Justice Roberts rejected the argument that a jury should be allowed to consider a president’s immune, official conduct in deciding whether he is guilty for non-immune, private conduct. Roberts wrote that allowing official acts, immune conduct to help secure a conviction for unofficial acts, “will heighten the prospect that the President’s official decision making will be distorted,” thereby defeating “the ‘intended effect’ of immunity.”

    That makes a lot of sense. Official acts are just that; if one finds a president’s official acts to be wrong or odious, the response is at the ballot box, and if the acts are illegal, the response is impeachment.

    jb4 in reply to TargaGTS. | July 2, 2024 at 8:09 pm

    If Merchan ignores the directly related SCOTUS comment and does not grant a mistrial, could Trump then directly appeal to SCOTUS, or does it still have to go through the NY Appellate courts first. In other words, does a judge get to say “screw you” to SCOTUS?

“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”
~Lavrentiy Beria
~Alvin Bragg

    Paula in reply to venril. | July 2, 2024 at 12:52 pm

    “Show me a fat, incompetent, totally corrupt political hack and I’ll show you Alvin Bragg.”
    ~Paula

    CommoChief in reply to venril. | July 2, 2024 at 2:35 pm

    A book written by Harvey Silverglate, ‘Three Felonies A Day’ is as relevant in 2024 as it was when published in 2009. A prosecutor has very large.selection of statutes and regulatory infractions with huge penalties to choose from. Plenty of folks have been hemmed up by over zealous prosecutors over the decades. The very public nature of the serial prosecutions and appearance of highly coordinated attacks on Trump has finally brought this issue into national focus. If a prosecutor decides to ‘get’ anyone they almost certainly can unless the defendant has extreme wealth to fight it out in CT.

      AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to CommoChief. | July 2, 2024 at 3:44 pm

      That’s why I am appreciative of Robert’s decision that states that the success and continuation of our Republic should not be at the hands of prosecutors.

a. bragg; someone famous for being so far below average and so obviously AA.

MoeHowardwasright | July 2, 2024 at 2:50 pm

I believe this has more to do with how Coangelo came to be a part of this legal team of Bragg’s. While I normally don’t trust any Congress critter, I think the judiciary and weaponization committees have Bragg coming to town. I don’t think he wants to add perjury to his resume. He sees how bad Xiden is and won’t take the fall for the cabal in DC. FJB

“BREAKING: Trump’s sentencing is postponed until Sept. 18 “if such is still necessary“”

https://x.com/GrahamKates/status/1808213396921409915

I don’t want to jinx anything. But, I think there’s some chance, perhaps even a reasonable chance, Marchan declares a mistrial because of the problems Roberts, with his Immunity opinion yesterday, foisted upon the the case as it was adjudicated by Marchan.

    IneedAhaircut in reply to TargaGTS. | July 2, 2024 at 3:47 pm

    And delaying the decision to declare a mistrial until the fall has the advantage of riling up the dem base closer to the election.

      TargaGTS in reply to IneedAhaircut. | July 2, 2024 at 4:30 pm

      Yes. And, it allows the Dems to pretend that there wasn’t anything else wrong with the case, just the ‘extreme rightwing’ decision to grant presidents some useful immunity. Additionally, if Marchan grants a mistrial, it saves him the embarrassment of having an appellate court embarrass him in a number of ways. His conduct in this case was odious. The number of reversible errors that had NOTHING to due with immunity are likely in the double-digits.

        randian in reply to TargaGTS. | July 4, 2024 at 2:01 am

        The problem is it’s doubtful any NY appellate court will reverse on those errors. Keep Trump tied up all four years of his presumptive future Presidential term fighting criminal appeals under a perpetual gag order, not to mention lawsuits against every official decision.

destroycommunism | July 2, 2024 at 4:22 pm

and here might be the plan:

the court will say
we dont want to influence the elections

and that would cause the speculation to be

we cant have a sitting potus get indicted

LEFTY IS A TRICKY TRICKY POS

This may not be about the SCOTUS ruling. The judge saw the debate; he knows Trump will be President. He suspects that a President Trump will not appoint a DC insider as Attorney General and the DoJ will be under Trump’s full control. Which means an investigation into White House meetings with the DoJ and DANY and the Atlanta prosecutors — all discussing on how to fabricate a case against Trump….

…a conspiracy. A conspiracy to deprive Trump of his civil rights, in violation of 18 USC 241. The same statute Smith used in one of the charges in the DC case.

    buck61 in reply to George S. | July 2, 2024 at 5:03 pm

    Trump will only be able to go as far as the senate will allow him. If the dems keep control of the senate there will be an unconfirmed AG or a DC insider. If the repubs have a split senate or a margin of one or two getting a true outsider will be difficult, it may take a margin of 3-5 to get a true outsider confirmed. If the repubs get the senate Graham is most like Judiciary Chair.

      clintack in reply to buck61. | July 3, 2024 at 9:39 am

      If necessary, he can appoint a series of “acting attorneys general”… but, I agree it would be messy.

Perhaps the sentencing delay is in response to multiple SA filing suit against NY for election interference. I believe the SA of MO was part of this.

I would not be surprised if the prosecution and judge in this case suddenly got a lump in their throats after the SCOTUS ruling on immunity.

The high court gave them an elegant off-ramp to just declare a mistrial here due to the new evidence standard, which they should take. Politically, the effort has only considerably boosted Trump, and Biden is sinking like an iron ball to the bottom of the ocean at an accelerating pace.

Legally, the immunity puts them in the position of potentially facing a president armed with the Insurrection Act to use against THEM – and absolute, ironclad, and unreviewable authority to actually use it.