Report: Trump Seeks To Delay Criminal Sentencing
Former President Trump asked the New York judge who oversaw his recent criminal trial to delay his sentencing until after November’s presidential election.
Judge Juan Merchan previously agreed to push the date back until September so he can first decide whether the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision requires tossing Trump’s guilty verdict.
“[S]etting aside naked election-interference objectives, there is no valid countervailing reason for the Court to keep the current sentencing date on the calendar,” Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in a letter to the judge, which was made public Thursday.
“There is no basis for continuing to rush,” the letter continued. “Accordingly, we respectfully request that any sentencing, if one is needed, be adjourned until after the Presidential election.”
In May, a New York jury convicted Trump on all 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Trump’s sentencing in New York was originally slated for July, but the judge pushed it back to Sept. 18 after the Supreme Court ruled that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for official acts.
According to The Hill, Trump does not claim immunity from the hush money charges themselves, but he asserts that prosecutors at trial improperly introduced immunized evidence, so his verdict must be wiped as a result. Prosecutors have pushed back on the argument, and Merchan is set to rule on the matter two days before sentencing.
Trump’s attorneys said the small gap is an “unreasonably short period of time,” signaling the former president will immediately attempt to appeal if the judge rejects his immunity arguments.
“The requested adjournment is also necessary to allow President Trump adequate time to assess and pursue state and federal appellate options in response to adverse ruling,” the letter reads.
The letter also noted Merchan’s third refusal to recuse from the case Wednesday.
“Notwithstanding the Court’s ruling on the disputed recusal issue, the requested adjournment would prospectively mitigate the asserted conflicts and appearances of impropriety, which are also the subject of an ongoing congressional inquiry,” Blanche and Bove wrote in the letter.
[Watch] Trump’s Niece Compares Him Unfavorably To Jeffrey Dahmer On MSNBC
Mary Trump‘s aversion to her famous uncle is well-known, but it’s not every day she compares him to one of America’s most infamous serial killers.
On national television.
Reflecting on the Stormy Daniels hush money case, Trump’s niece joined MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell to mock the lack of Trump supporters demonstrating outside the courthouse and the absence of the former president’s family inside the courtroom.
Several reporters also noticed their lack of attendance in the courtroom, asking the presumptive Republican nominee where Melania is.
Appearing on Monday’s edition of “The Last Word,” Mary and Larry mocked the presidential front-runner, saying that even Jeffrey Dahmer‘s parents attended his trial.
“This is something that I’ve never seen,” O’Donnell claimed. “Not actually made manifest in the courtroom, before Donald Trump‘s in that courtroom alone. Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents were there every single day. It is. It is very hard, to, to find a courtroom where the criminal defendant doesn’t have a relative sitting there in the front row.”
The younger Trump replied: “Yeah, well, I got a couple of things about that. First of all, it’s another example of how, he, he perverts systems or expectations. For anybody else, that would just be damning. Right. Just the way he talks about dogs would be damning.”
“How many times have we heard that his bizarre behavior, that, that he engages in bizarre behaviors or just doesn’t conform in a way that, that a, a reasonably well-adjusted human being would?”
“But like everything else about him, it just kind of gets baked in,” she continued. “Right.”
“But it is. Let’s, it’s worth, pausing, about how under. Unfair on. Unreal. Bizarre. Strange. Unacceptable. Weird. Whatever adjective you want to use, it is that he is there alone in terms of friends and family,” her assessment continued.
“I think it is worth pointing out… One. I don’t think he cares. I don’t think it matters to him. That is not where he gets his energy. That is not what gives him solace to the extent that anything does,” Trump opined. “He’s more upset about the fact that there aren’t more people outside protesting on his behalf. Right.”
“But it also points to, the bizarre thing about my family that every transaction in this family is a transactional one,” the estranged niece continued. “I’m sorry. Every relationship, I should say, is a transactional one. His kids have decided, for whatever reason, that it’s not worth their time for them to be in that courtroom because they’re not going to get anything out of it. That’s, that’s the way this family rolls.”
Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News