patrick.net

These cases are nothing but election maneuvering. After the election, nobody will give a shit and so Merchan can drop it.

What I do and don't get is how these trials moved along so quickly. Didn't TD's case take almost 5 years for a murder? All of these Trump cases are blatant election interference. I've only been to court with my dad when he was alive since he was an attorney. No intention of going to court again because it would mean I did something stupid.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/laughing-infections-saturday-september

Corporate media was madder than enraged hornets yesterday about what you will probably consider good news. Politico ran a highly annoyed column with the argumentative headline, “There Was No Good Legal Reason to Delay Trump’s Sentencing.” When you also consider Hunter’s sentencing schedule, it adds up to another bizarre, 2024-style confluence of events.

At a practical level, Manhattan Judge Merchan had little choice. The DA’s office had filed a motion indicating it did not oppose Trump’s request to delay sentencing till after the election. In his order granting the delay, Judge Merchan said the DA’s lack of opposition could “fairly be construed as a joinder of the motion.”

In other words, DA Alvin Bragg had agreed to push the sentencing hearing. Presumably he has his reasons. So the judge was faced with nobody arguing for sentencing the President —an unprecedented sequence of words— next week as planned.

Politico’s columnist was offended by the delay. He clearly suggested Judge Merchan should have moved forward anyway. The news mag blamed MAGA attacks on the judge, suggesting Judge Merchan had been cowed by a barrage of conservative inquiries and harsh criticisms.

In other words, it’s Trump’s fault. It’s gotten political.

But — what did they expect? There’s a good reason why Presidents have never been prosecuted before, and that reason is because Presidents are polarizing political figures. Even if the case had merit, which it doesn’t, it was always inevitable the case would become inextricably mired in politics right from the filing of the initial indictment.

This case is the Stormy Daniels “hush money” case, where Trump was convicted of ‘falsifying business records’ because his accountant wrote “legal expenses” on several payments to Trump’s lawyer. Since Trump is a first-time offender, the crime is a victimless white-collar crime, and since it was such a creative prosecutorial stretch, Trump should get probation. Meaning, no jail time.

If Judge Merchan sentences Trump to prison anyway, it would provoke an unprecedented Constitutional crisis over the separation of powers. The easiest way to avoid that unpleasant outcome would be to order Trump’s sentence to start after he left office. Assuming Merchan did not take that easy out, the case would likely return back to the Supreme Court.

At that point, the simplest way for the Supreme Court to solve the Constitutional conundrum would be to stay Trump’s sentence until after his term, on the theory that imprisonment is inconsistent with Trump’s ability to fulfill his Constitutional duties as President. That way, the Supremes could avoid wading into deeper legal waters by creating controversial new immunities or presidential doctrines.

It is worth marveling about the miraculous fact that, despite the dizzying and historic barrage of state and federal lawfare, Trump remains free as a Twitter bluebird and politically undamaged. If anything, all the lawfare helped the former President. For just one example, Trump’s constant legal battles have kept the former President in the media’s klieg lights, and have guaranteed his constant publicity, which inarguably fueled his campaign fundraising.

Trump is a marketing genius, and his enemies handed him troves of public relations ammunition.

It’s also striking how the political prosecutions amount to legal attempts to assassinate President Trump, which have all failed just like the actual assassination attempt did.

I predict probation, but I’m not ruling anything out. This is 2024, after all, and anything could happen.