NEW: Trump sentencing likely delayed. Manhattan DA's office says it would not oppose a brief delay to brief issues surrounding immunity decision. (via Frank G. Runyeon, Law360)
Don't worry about this, friends! Nothing is likely to change—it's just customary to allow briefing on new issues. No doubt the Trump team will raise this issue on appeal, but my first impression is that it's very unlikely to succeed
It does mean, though, with the sentencing now after the RNC, that Trump will be able to deliver his acceptance speech in person rather than on Zoom, from Rikers
Seems likely a hard case to make that an act before you were elected is an "official" act in the capacity of the office you hadn't yet been elected to!
Some conversations used against him took place while he was president, so Trump's attorneys will argue those conversations are now inadmissible. A cynical person might conclude the SCOTUS decision was carefully crafted to inflict the maximum feasible chaos on *all* of Trump's criminal cases.
The specific crime Trump was convicted of involved his signing checks to Cohen while he was president, which were to conceal the crime he committed before he won the 2016 election.
Very excited to see this get appealed to the Supreme Court, where the Republican judges will rule that signing checks to cover up a hush money payment are indeed official acts!
tho only a two week delay, and implying fairly strongly they do not accept the argument the case is relevant, even if they are willing to provide time for everyone to think about it carefully.
It's also choosing his battles. No way Merchan wasn't going to have this briefed. They're aiming to minimize the delay. Avoiding it altogether was already not in the cards. But it can go quicker if Merchan tackles it himself directly in the first instance.
The question now isn't if sentencing will proceed on the previous schedule. That was shot to hell yesterday. The fight is on trying to get to sentencing before the election now, considering not only Merchan's handling of it but the inevitable attempts at interlocutory appeal, even if they fail.
Even if all the relevant courts move as expeditiously as possible and quickly reject all of his procedural and substantive claims, this add weeks at a minimum and most likely multiple months.
I don't know New York law beyond knowing it's quirky, but my initial and somewhat-more-considered reactions are "interlocutory appeal after verdict but before judgment? Appeal from the judgment like everyone else, you lunatic."
That might be right, I don't know enough to say. But even rejecting the attempt can sometimes take some amount of time and cause delays, especially if Merchan is cautious about proceeding while anything is pending above, even if it's pending certain rejection, which some of this might not be.
there's no interlocutory action in federal courts available without either remand to jail or entry of judgment/sentencing—not without SCOTUS breaking *many more* laws.
the cleanest disposal of the issues is that Trump waived them by failing to timely raise them. second cleanest is harmless error.
if they get into the merits and those two issues don't resolve in the prosecution's favor, and SCOTUS gets to opine on the merits before Election Day, they will act to blanket him in preferential immunity.
the smartest thing for Merchan to do re sentencing is no longer remand, which opens the door to an immediate federal habeas action in which Donald Trump's political allies can act under color of law to ensure that he remains free.
I don't think this argument is going to go anywhere, but FWIW most of the charged conduct related to the reimbursements that happened (and statements that Trump made) while Trump was in office
But I don't see how he could even plausibly argue that any of that constituted "official acts." IIRC he already tried that about his public statements and it got rejected, and the idea that signing a personal check is an official act is even more ludicrous.
Some of the evidence used at trial may be covered by SCOTUS's newly-invented "Presidential Immunity." They said that official acts can't even be used as evidence, and they gave no tools to determine what is or isn't an official act.
I think the issue is per yesterday’s decision, you can’t use “core presidential acts” even as evidence of other crimes. So there will be briefs on whether any evidence based on Trump’s actions post-2017 fits into that category.
The payments and invoices all happened when he was in office, but hopefully it’ll be very obviously not part of his duties as president to personally sign checks from his own business.
Can't tell. In King Roberts' ruling, he decreed that you may not question the motives of The Unquestionable One so if Trump simply says "Those were official acts" there's not really a way to push back.
Some of the evidence came from when he was in office. Those actions are now the Unquestionable Godly Acts of Herr President according to King Roberts so there's a real question of whether that evidence being thrown out would throw the whole case out.
