And So it Begins
Immunity leading to impunity?
Via the NYT: Manhattan Prosecutors Agree to Delay Trump’s Sentencing.
Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday agreed with Donald J. Trump’s request to postpone his criminal sentencing so that the judge overseeing the case could weigh whether a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling might imperil his conviction, new court filings show.
It is up to the judge to determine whether to postpone the sentencing, though with both sides in agreement, a delay seemed likely. The judge, Juan M. Merchan, could rule as soon as Tuesday.
A delay would represent a surprising setback for the case, which led to the first conviction of an American president. The sentencing was likely to be the only moment of criminal accountability for the twice-impeached and four-time indicted former president whose other cases are mired in delay.
Because I guess we now have to determine if engaging in falsification of documents in the pursuance of influencing an election to cover up sex with a porn star is a “core” power of the presidency.
To be clear: I fully understand it is within Trump’s rights to try and see if the ruling applies in this case and I would not deny him the opportunity. But the reality is that this should not, in my view, a legitimate option, and yet SCOTUS has made it such. It is wholly possible that the actions in question are somehow covered by the ruling in Trump v. United States.
I will not be at all surprised if Judge Cannon throws out the documents case as a result of yesterday’s ruling.
Didn’t the Stormy Daniels hush money payoff occur before Trump was president?
We’re going see Prosecutors forced to relitigate the case with new evidentiary exclusions. Wonderful.
In the Nixon era, I frequently opened that the Republic would end with a whimper, not a bang. Of course, I also expected it to outlive me. Sadly, I know longer believe that.
I don’t see how a private citizen campaigning for President or a President acting in his capacity as a private businessman is exercising even a peripheral Presidential power. But who the hell knows.
@SenyorDave:
Cohen paid off Daniels before the election.
Wannabehitler falsified records in furtherance of other crimes after he began his long desecration of the oval office.
There won’t be any sentencing this year, If Judge Merchan rules, in accordance to reality, that Wannabehitler’s personal business matters are not, and cannot ever be, an official act, the decision will be appealed. the law firm of Leo and Crow won’t take it up in an expedited manner, but leave it to some time in the next term.
Once Wannabehitler loses, one fervently hopes, the election in November, there won’t even be a rush to make a decision. Expect a ruling by July next year, if then, and if it’s not kicked back to the circuit court for further delay.
I understand the need for a court to review all legal motions made by all parties to a case, but the practice lends itself to abuse and delay.
I fully expect this now. Even though the obstruction took place years into the Biden administration when the president was, checks notes, Joe Biden.
It can be much worse. Judge Orange Ass-kisser can determine the immunity applies, because the 2020 was fraudulent and the Orange Ass was still legitimately president.
Won’t that get her to be chief justice after Roberts mysteriously dies suddenly of a 9mm brain hemorrhage?
@James Joyner:
I’d lay odds that he could get at least 4 votes on the supreme court to agree that it was, but he might not get a 5th.
Well, the documents all this case hinge on were submitted 2 years after the election. Perhaps a private act, but hard to see how the document submission influenced the election and there was no obligation to disclose before the election.
In any case, this is just a move to get the judge to make a determination that could inform the coming appeals. If they don’t ask, then they can’t use it later if it is useable.
I any case, after Biden’s debate performance, those who had been striking at Trump are likely to want to distance themselves from their actions. In this case, the prosecutors don’t wish to revive the revile by making the sentencing “the news cycle” while Biden’s condition is now in the light.
Trump’s jet is parked alongside an official Russian government jet and a UAE jet at Dulles. Nothing to see there, folks. Aside from the usual Trump treason. Reassuring Vlad that he can still take Ukraine, and the UAE that he (and his son-in-law) remain for sale.
Trump has ramped up his request/demand that Liz Cheney, Mike Pence, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and everyone on the Jan. 6 Committee be tried for treason in televised military tribunals.
And then, I suppose, they should also be executed by firing squad, also televised.
@CSK: Source please. I have no idea whether this is real or not.
(If I were to tell my shrink that I am having trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy, he would be initially concerned, before the examples)
@James Joyner:
When we get the inevitable appeal to SCOTUS, Roberts will explain why it’s official conduct.
“When your a corrupt ex pres, they let you do it. Just grab ’em by the failing institutions” – Trump, probably
I hope I’m wrong
@Gustopher:
The source is CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/politics/trump-liz-cheney-military-tribunal/index.html
I’m surprised he knows what a tribunal is.
@Grewgills: Which two of the Supermajority Six are going to object? Asking out of curiosity.
On the other hand, were I Merchan, I would rule tomorrow all the same and force the Supremes to vacate. And yes, I happen to not play well with the other children (and have a death wish).
@CSK:
He doesn’t.
What Wannabehitler wants is a drumhead show trial and summary execution.
@Kathy:
He said they should all be in jail instead of Steve Bannon.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Yeah, I hear ya, zeeb. Still, it’ll take a fair amount of time to dismantle the system and House members are vulnerable every other year. The type of slim majority Republicans are likely to get won’t hold; voters have preferred divided government most of our lifetimes. That still gives us the edge.
@just nutha:
This is our one thin hope, that voters will support Dems for Congress as a watch on Trump.
@James Joyner:
Heh. Then again, some of us didn’t understand how a private citizen executing an NDA – done 365 days a year, year after year – got magically turned into a supposed felony level campaign finance violation, despite the view of the FEC Chairman, who’s testimony was shockingly disallowed.
@Jack: Your refusal to understand NY state law is not the powerful argument you seem to think it is.
@Jack:
Once more, in New York expert witnesses in a case like this are able to comment on the facts of a law (i.e. what the law says). They are not necessarily able to comment on the interpretation of the law, what you called his “view.”
There was no miscarriage of justice or issue with that ruling despite all the lies you keep hearing in Right Wing Media and repeating here.
Judge Merchan has delayed Trump’s sentencing until September 18, “if such is still necessary.”
@James Joyner: “I don’t see how a private citizen campaigning for President or a President acting in his capacity as a private businessman is exercising even a peripheral Presidential power. But who the hell knows.”
You know. I know. We all know.
@Michael Reynolds: I’m not much of a “throw Biden on the trash heap of history” guy. Not anymore than I was in 2019, anyway. Swing states are not cast in concrete yet, and Democrats still have time. What the do with it is up to them.
Let’s be clear; Trumps crime was not paying off a porn star, it was deducting the payments from his taxable income. It does not matter when he did this. This is not a core constitutional function of the president, as a matter of fact it is the direct opposite. Does the ruling mean he does not have to pay taxes while he is president?
We need to stop deferring to Trumps more violent base. Considering this filing is ridiculous.
@Michael Reynolds:
Tee up: Twilight zone music.
I read your comments. You seem a reasonably bright guy. This crap is just bizarre. Just bizarre.
Are you mentally stable?
@mattbernius:
He was to testify about the law. Every witness’ view is, by definition, an opinion.
You make this argument as a biased porn star and convicted liar’s testimony was allowed?
You, intellectually, are a complete and total fraud. Just an idiot partisan not to be listened to on ones’s worst day.
Next thing I know I’ll be lectured that Biden is “the best, most engaged, intellectually sharp Biden ever.” (See: Joe Scarborliar.)
The gaslighting aint gonna work, you fools. When you’ve lost Jake Tapper.
@Jack:
Literally everyone – including you hypocrite MAGAts – know Trump is in Putin’s pocket. Of all the world leaders, name the ones who are looking forward to Trump’s return: Kim Jong UN, Trump’s crush; Bibi Netanyahu, a fellow criminal; Viktor Orban, vying for the Mussolini role; and Vladimir Putin.
There is not a single other world leader who wants Trump back. Every single one of our allies in Europe knows Trump will sell them out to Putin. He won’t even hesitate. Trump will never honor article 5, he will betray NATO, and he’ll betray Ukraine. And as for Trump’s little buddy Kim, guess who he’s tight with. Huh, also Putin. We have the Axis of Assholes.
With Trump all roads in foreign policy lead to Putin. That’s why he refused to allow American interpreters or note-takers into his meeting with Putin. That’s why he tried to extort Ukraine into fabricating evidence against Biden, for which he was impeached. That’s why he sabotaged NATO.
Just as the US has reached an unequaled status of wealth and power in the world, and even as we are bloodlessly (for us) seeing Putin weakened, your idiot cult leader is going to throw it all away. He will do what Putin wants, Trump has no other major power friend.
ETA: Oh, forgot to mention, he’s a rapist who slobbers after his own daughter. Let’s not forget that he’s a rapist who abused his victim again and again from he White House. A real pig.
@Michael Reynolds:
I don’t think that will happen this time. It may happen in 2026 after two years of the new horror that will be Trump. At that point it may be too late. Trump will have weaponized the justice department and established a MAGA deep state swamp. We will have given Ukraine to Russia and Russia will move on their next target, maybe Poland. We will have given Netanyahu Gaza and the west bank and Golan heights. Maybe they will break ground for the third temple inflaming the Islamic world. So, Mideast explodes and Europe explodes.
On my understanding, the New York conviction is in jeopardy because evidence was led which Roberts and company have indirectly ruled should have been inadmissible. They ruled (Barrett dissented from this bit) that courts could not consider a president’s official actions as evidence of his criminal intent, meaning official conversations, documents etc were absolutely immune from being used against him/her. Apparently evidence like that about what Trump said to White House aides was introduced by the Bragg prosecutors to prove he’d paid Daniels to help his election campaign, not to protect his family.
@Michael Reynolds:
Not at all. Many lead to Middle Eastern despots. Why just last month, he signed two deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars to develop projects in Oman and Jeddah. Naturally Trump Republicans will deny this would present any sort of conflict of interest should he return to the White House, unlike for example having a son on the board of directors of a Ukrainian company.
@just nutha:
Maybe Roberts or maybe Barrett, but I wouldn’t bet our democracy on it.
@Ken_L: Well, in the interest of accuracy, the ruling classifies Trump’s remarks to an aide about Stormy Daniels as not a “core” duty, but a most a “peripheral” one and allows prosecutors to “rebut” the presumption of immunity by arguing that allowing this to go forward would not constrain a president in the pursuit of his duties.
All of which pertains to the hush money thing.
But you know, I’m not a lawyer, I may have some details wrong.
@Jack:
Tell us you are not a lawyer without telling us you are not a lawyer
And what’s funny is you shit over everyone commenting on business as not knowing what they are talking about… And then you spout off this ignorant stuff about a profession you are apparently deeply ignorant of.
Sad that you have such a fragile ego.
@Jack:
Tell us you are not a lawyer without telling us you are not a lawyer
And what’s funny is you shit over everyone commenting on business as not knowing what they are talking about… And then you spout off this ignorant stuff about a profession you are apparently deeply ignorant of.
Sad that you have such a fragile ego.
if engaging in falsification of documents in the pursuance of influencing an election to cover up sex with a porn star
The real point, as has been made by MANY people, is that what James Joyner just described there is not a crime. It’s been explained many times by people who know more about the law than anyone posting here. It was an abuse of the system. I’m not going to bother repeating any of it because if you don’t already know it, it’s because you don’t want to know it.
Meanwhile, a bag of cocaine shows up in the White House, you’re told the Secret Service can’t figure out to whom it belongs, and you’re perfectly fine with that.
I love the smell of restored norms in the morning.
@Ken_L:
That’s my understanding too. And it seems like it has legs–especially on the evidentiary side. The idea that official acts cannot be used as evidence will be a big problem for the case–given how broadly the USC defined them without defining them.
@Ken_L:
That’s my understanding too. And it seems like it has legs–especially on the evidentiary side. The idea that official acts cannot be used as evidence will be a big problem for the case–given how broadly the USC defined them without defining them.
@TheRyGuy: So, basically, “many people are saying.”
Well, that’s all I need to know!
So apparently the issue in the NYC trial is that the prosecutors brought in and Merchan allowed Hope Hicks’ testimony which went to “what the president was thinking” which is now not allowed after the decision. They’ll argue “harmless error” but it is now something that could impact appeal.
NYC prosecutors did similar in the Harvey Weinstein, brought in extra testimony that then got the conviction overturned on appeal. They seem either to believe their absolute immunity makes them king or are just too stupid to stay on the right side of the law