The News
President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing for his New York hush-money conviction has been postponed indefinitely, Judge Juan Merchan said in a letter on Friday.
The judge also granted Trump’s legal team the right to file a motion to dismiss the case altogether, which they have argued violates a recent Supreme Court ruling expanding presidential immunity.
Trump’s lawyers have said that “just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect.” Merchan gave the defense and the prosecution until early January to make their arguments about whether the case should be thrown out.
New York prosecutors said Tuesday in a court filing that they opposed dismissing the case outright, but would be open to delaying sentencing until after Trump’s second term in office.
SIGNALS
Department of Justice looks to wind down federal cases
The Department of Justice is mulling how to wind down federal cases against the president-elect, as the department has a longstanding policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents. There are two ongoing cases against Trump, one to do with his alleged involvement in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and the other related to allegedly withholding classified documents. Special Counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor who has led the department’s cases against the former president, plans to resign before Trump enters office in January, The Washington Post reported, and Republicans have warned that Smith could face investigation himself over what they have dubbed a “partisan witchunt” once Trump is in office.
Georgia case could continue after Trump’s term in office
Trump’s election interference case in Georgia could continue even as his federal cases wind down. State-level prosecutors may not follow the Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents, although some legal experts think state courts would likely follow the same standard. That said, “there’s no easy way for Trump to cleanly do away with them,” The Atlantic wrote, referring to the Republican’s state cases. In Georgia, the Fulton County prosecution is in limbo while a move to disqualify the district attorney proceeds, and if the case continues, Trump’s lawyer has signaled he will push to delay a possible trial until after he leaves office. Ultimately the chances of Trump facing trial for this case while in office are “absolutely zero,” a legal expert said.
Did the US legal system fail to hold Trump to account?
All of Donald Trump’s cases, both at the state and federal level, have seen numerous delays, with only one going to trial, and legal experts have debated whether the US justice system failed to do its job. A Brookings Institution legal expert argued in Lawfare that Trump was treated very differently from other defendants accused of similar crimes: “The system manifestly did not do justice.” Other experts argued that the election was the ultimate verdict on Trump’s cases, and having won, “all of the cases should be abandoned,” former Supreme Court lawyer Thomas Goldstein argued in The New York Times, warning that the state cases in particular “carry the stench of politics and… could lay the groundwork for political prosecutions of future presidents.”