NEW YORK—Those disappointed by the election results last week and holding onto hope that Donald Trump might still face jail time should brace for yet more disappointment. The four outstanding cases against the president-elect are likely to evaporate before he takes office in January.
This week in New York, Judge Juan Merchan was due to determine if Trump’s sentencing hearing, scheduled for Nov. 19, will proceed given the Supreme Court’s ruling from earlier this year conferring presidential immunity. However, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s request for the judge to delay his ruling until Nov. 26 was granted.
Found guilty on 34 felony counts of business fraud for paying off adult film actress Stormy Daniels before he was president, Trump’s lawyers nevertheless argue that as the trial touched on things Trump said and did while in office, he was and is above the law. A decision by the Manhattan court to indefinitely delay the sentencing hearing would keep Trump out of prison. Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo stated that these are “unprecedented circumstances.”
After all, a convicted felon has never before been elected president. Richard Nixon wriggled out of his own legal woes by resigning and accepting a pardon from his successor and once-Vice President Gerald Ford, setting the basis for a Justice Department policy that declines to investigate and prosecute sitting presidents. Running for president in order to stay out of prison is indeed an unprecedented legal strategy, one that Trump may reap dividends from before once again swearing to uphold the Constitution in January of next year.
In Georgia, where he and others were charged with racketeering around election interference, the trial is stalled until District Attorney Fani Willis convinces a judge that she is fit to try the case due to an improper relationship with her appointed special counsel. That said, experts say that the case, if it still stands after numerous legal delays and maneuvers, would likely be pushed back years, regardless. Trump is accused of making phone calls to Georgia elected officials urging them to “find votes” that he needed to win in that state in the 2020 election.
Federal charges filed last year against Trump in Florida have been dismissed by his own appointee, Judge Aileen Cannon, on the grounds that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s role was unconstitutional. In return for her loyal service, she is now reportedly on Trump’s shortlist as a possible Supreme Court replacement for Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
At the same time, Merrick Garland’s Justice Department is working tirelessly to dismiss all remaining federal charges against Trump. Special Counsel Smith, whom Trump has publicly said he will fire “within two seconds” of taking office in January, is honoring DOJ policy that forbids investigation of sitting presidents.
As a result of the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, presidents of the United States now enjoy legal immunity for any and all criminal actions taken during the course of their “official duties.” Trump argues that his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election was included in the category of such duties.
“By inserting this opinion into a world where impeachment is no longer a viable option, the Supreme Court is licensing future presidents to subvert our democracy at will,” said Samuel Briedbart, counsel in the Democracy Program at NYU’s Brennan Center.
According to Briedbart, the authors of the U.S. Constitution concentrated power into the executive to make it easier to hold them accountable – not less. The ruling ignores this history and “practically invites future presidents to use the levers of the federal government to commit crimes,” he said. “That’s absurd and intolerable.”
While Smith might be packing his bags and attempting a quiet exit, billionaire Elon Musk and others in the MAGA crowd are already calling for revenge. Close Trump advisor Steve Bannon, newly released from prison after being found in contempt during Congress’s January 6th investigation, has called for “rough Roman justice” to be brought down on Smith, the Justice Department, and media outlets who called for the prosecution of Trump and his MAGA inner circle.
Appearing outside the Manhattan Criminal Court building Wednesday for a pre-trial hearing on felony conspiracy, fraud, and money laundering, Bannon seemed triumphant, despite hecklers who shouted expletives at him as he walked into the building. His lawyers attempted to move his trial to January, but Judge April Newbauer declined to accept their argument. The next time Bannon’s lawyers will argue for a delay in the trial will be next Monday.
Bannon implied that Trump’s win absolved him and those in his circle of their crimes. He singled out N.Y. Attorney General Leticia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, Jack Smith, and Merrick Garland by name for revenge. “The hunted are about to become the hunters,” he threatened.
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