Andrew McCarthy: Get ready for Trump to be sentenced to prison on September 18

To no one’s surprise, Judge Juan Merchan once again denied former President Donald Trump’s motion to recuse himself. I’m talking, of course, about the case in which the elected Democratic Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, is indicting Trump. In early June, a jury found the former president and current presidential candidate of the Republic of Moldova guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Not only that Judge Merchan had previously denied the recusal motion. The judge has signaled that come hell or high water, he plans to sentence Trump on September 18.

If you’re keeping score, that would be two days after early voting in the 2024 election begins in Pennsylvania.

NEW YORK V. TRUMP: MERCHAN DELAYS SENTENCE HEARING UNTIL SEPTEMBER

Trump’s defense team tried to avoid sentencing. And the lawyers have what in a normal case would be real ammunition.

On July 1, the US Supreme Court held that presidents (including former presidents) are (a) presumptively immune from prosecution for any official acts taken as president and (b) absolutely immune if the official acts are essential constitutional duties of the head . executive. The Court directed that this immunity extends not only to taxes but to EVIDENCE. This means that prosecutors are not only barred from charging official presidential acts as crimes; moreover, they are prohibited from even using such documents as evidence offered to establish other crimes.

The prosecution of Trump in New York was politics, not justice. That’s why we call it “law”. Prosecutors and the judge aren’t worried about whether the convictions will ultimately be overturned on appeal.

There’s no denying that Bragg’s prosecutors used some of Trump’s official documents to make their case. Indeed, they called two of Trump’s White House staffers as witnesses.

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s lawyers moved after the trial to have the guilty verdicts thrown out based on the High Court’s immunity ruling. Moreover, they again argued that Merchan should recognize himself. In that regard, they argued that the lucrative political work Merchan’s daughter did for Vice President Kamala Harris should be seen as more significant now that Harris has replaced President Biden as Trump’s Democratic opponent in the upcoming election.

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On Tuesday, Merchan denied the motion to recuse himself. He signaled his intention to do so in a letter to the parties last week. He also said he plans to rule on Trump’s immunity request by Aug. 16. Most importantly, however, Merchan urged the parties to prepare for the court to proceed with sentencing on September 18. He instructed the lawyers to present any arguments promptly. intends to do on this subject.

If we can read the tea leaves, Merchan has already decided that he will deny Trump’s immunity motion. In addition, there is a high probability that he will impose a prison sentence against Trump immediately afterwards.

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Until last week, when he issued his letter, Merchan had several weeks to think about the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and the Trump team’s subsequent brief arguing that the guilty verdicts should be thrown out. He told the parties to prepare for sentencing anyway. Obviously, if Merchan had any intention of overturning the verdicts or recusing himself, he would not have kept to the sentencing date.

I suspect Merchan will rationalize that Trump (a) was not indicted based on official presidential records and (b) would have been convicted even if Bragg’s prosecutors had not introduced presumably immunized evidence. Such a decision could be wrong, especially on the latter point (at trial, prosecutors described some of Trump’s employees’ testimony as “devastating”); but Merchan has made so many outrageous decisions in this case that it would be foolish to expect him to change course now.

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In fact, my view is that, even more than the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, another Supreme Court decision will support Trump’s eventual appeal—Erlinger v. United States. There, the Court reaffirmed that in criminal cases, material evidence affecting potential punishment must be found unanimously by the jury. Merchan, by contrast, denied Trump the right to a unanimous verdict on the alleged crime (conspiracy to influence the election by unlawful conduct) that Bragg alleged Trump was trying to hide by falsifying his business records. That crime is what turned a misdemeanor into a felony and what allowed Bragg to skirt the two-year statute of limitations for the misdemeanor.

But that brings us to the main point. The prosecution of Trump in New York was politics, not justice. That’s why we call it “law”. Prosecutors and the judge aren’t worried about whether the convictions will ultimately be overturned on appeal. And it’s not like Merchan will actually put Trump in jail; it’s virtually certain that Trump will be granted bail pending appeal, so Merchan may appear to be imposing a stiff prison sentence without any actual incarceration — at least for now, and probably never.

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The objective here is to allow Vice President Harris and the Democratic media complex to label Trump as “a convicted felon” just weeks before Election Day, at a time when Americans will have already begun voting in many states, not least in the potential ones. decisive battlefield in Pennsylvania.

Get ready for Merchan to reject Trump’s immunity claim … and set up sentencing on September 18th.

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