The judge presiding over President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has delayed sentencing, granting Trump’s legal team an opportunity to argue that the conviction should be overturned in light of his election victory.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, whom Trump’s team previously sought to have removed from the case over allegations of bias, did not set a new sentencing date in his one-page order issued Friday, which canceled the sentencing hearing originally scheduled for next week, the Daily Wire reported.
“In a decisive win for President Trump, the hoax Manhattan Case is now fully stayed and sentencing is adjourned,” said Steven Cheung, Trump’s Communications Director. “President Trump won a landslide victory as the American People have issued a mandate to return him to office and dispose of all remnants of the Witch Hunt cases.”
“All of the sham lawfare attacks against President Trump are now destroyed and we are focused on Making America Great Again,” he added.
The Washington Post reported that Judge Juan Merchan is permitting Trump’s legal team to argue for the conviction to be overturned, citing the potential interference it could cause with his ability to fulfill his duties as president following his re-election.
“Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a letter filed this week.
The case, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who received backing from George Soros, has long been considered the weakest of the legal challenges against Trump. Even many Democrats expressed serious concerns about the case, suggesting it likely would not have been pursued if Trump were not running for president.
Meanwhile, the two federal cases against Trump led by special counsel Jack Smith are nearing resolution, as the Department of Justice cannot prosecute a sitting president.
Also, it’s expected that if Smith does not leave before Trump is inaugurated, Trump will fire Smith and his team, as he has repeatedly pledged to do during his campaign. From there, legal experts also believe that the Justice Department will eventually drop all charges against the president, meaning those two cases will go away.
That will leave just one case — the ‘election interference’ and ‘racketeering’ charges against Trump and more than a dozen others in Fulton County, Ga., though that case, too, is fraught with problems stemming from District Attorney Fani Willis’ improper relationship with a now-fired prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade.
Regarding the Justice Department, Trump responded swiftly to protests from his followers on Thursday who disagreed with his potential pick of former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) to head up the FBI.
Dan Scavino, who has been working as a social media director and advisor to Trump for a long time, cleared up the confusion on his X account on Friday morning.
“Just spoke to President Trump regarding Mike Rogers going to the FBI. It’s not happening — In his own words, ‘I have never even given it a thought.’ Not happening,” Scavino wrote.
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Rogers, a former FBI agent, congressman, and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, ran unsuccessfully in the U.S. Senate race in Michigan in November, barely losing to incumbent Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin.
In 2017, Rogers concluded that the Russians had intervened in the 2016 election, and he warned that this was a “clear and present danger to our democracy.” This led to the resurfacing of old social media statements from Rogers, which were made public after he was reported to be a candidate for the position of FBI director.
Additionally, Rogers was a co-founder of The Alliance for Securing Democracy, which has been referred to by detractors as a “deep state Never Trump” organization. The group was formed by former national security advisors from the establishment who were responsible for the creation of the Hamilton 68 project.
