A U.S. Supreme Court ruling about President-elect Donald Trump's immunity in his business fraud case has prompted Judge Juan Merchan out of New York to indefinitely postpone Trump's sentencing for 34 counts of business records fraud.
Merchan is reportedly moving to adjourn his court and not hand down a sentence for Trump, this after he and other Democrats made much ado about Trump's crimes pre-election.
SCOTUS found that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Trump relied on documents and testimony from Trump's White House staff. This means that Trump likely will not be imprisoned until after his four years are up – and even then, it is unclear as to whether Trump will actually ever be sentenced.
Any adjournment of the case before sentencing means that Trump has still not been convicted of any actual crimes. Like many suspected was the case, Bragg and Merchan went after Trump for political reasons rather than criminal ones, drumming up charges to try to stop Trump from achieving his political goals.
(Related: Earlier this year, the House GOP claimed that Judge Merchan violated Trump's constitutional and legal rights with his actions.)
Lawfare not enough to oust Trump
Leftists clearly believed that the witch hunt against Trump would culminate with the president-elect being publicly punished on the world stage, followed by his removal. It turns out the left was wrong, and Trump is growing even stronger.
Despite all the lawfare thrown his way, Trump won the 2024 election in a landslide. He won both the electoral and the popular vote, and is now slated to drop the axe during his second term.
The fact that Trump won the election by such a large margin prompted several top Republican and Democrat leaders to call on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and DAs Bragg and Fani Willis out of Georgia to end all of their legal proceedings against the president-elect.
Fox News, meanwhile, is reporting that the wire claiming that Trump's sentencing had been "adjourned" is actually incorrect, stemming from a court email stating that all future dates had been stayed.
If true, this means that Bragg will still file a recommendation to Merchan suggesting ways to proceed. Merchan would then have the option to postpone Trump's sentencing until after the next four years or discharge the case entirely, leaving the conviction intact but allowing Trump to avoid prison time, fines or probation.
The case in question stems from payments Trump made to porn star Stormy Daniels. The president-elect could have been sentenced to up to four years in prison for the way he maintained records about these payments.
As it stands, Merchan is waiting, at least for now, to sentence Trump, likely because of how wildly popular he was among voters in 2024. The Democrats clearly expected a Kamala Harris win or even a landslide, only to witness Trump take the victory instead.
"The People agree that these are unprecedented circumstances," said prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, who supports waiting to sentence Trump until a later date.
SCOTUS, just to be clear, ruled back in July that presidents are to be afforded presumptive immunity from criminal prosecutions for most of the things they do while in office, as long as actions are taken by the president within the scope of the "core constitutional powers" granted to the executive branch via the U.S. Constitution.
"Interesting situation," a commenter wrote. "Trump cannot appeal until he has been sentenced. It is in the appeals process where all the wind comes out of this baseless claim."
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