Judge Merchan delays decision on fate of Trump’s “document falsification” case; why the case is a mess

November 13, 2024

The moment it was clear last week that President Trump had won another term in the White House, we asked the question, what happens now with all the pending lawfare against him? We've got some updates.

Every one of those cases was brought in the first place to try to prevent Trump from being President again --- and if prosecutors needed to put him in jail to accomplish that, so much the better. (As the saying goes, that's not a bug; it's a feature.) In that case, putting him in the slammer is what they would gleefully have done. Even now, some on the left are still clinging to the idea that they can somehow paralyze the President-elect with one of these cases. In at least one instance, that would seem to include the judge in the case, Judge Juan Merchan. Otherwise, he'd just drop that hot mess.

In light of the SCOTUS decision that a President has immunity from federal prosecution for his official duties, the two cases brought by "Special Counsel" Jack Smith (never a constitutionally-appointed special counsel) are set to be dismissed by the "Justice" Department. (Yes, we do relish the irony suggested by those quotation marks.) The first of those is the so-called election interference case, the one related to the events of January 6, which the defense argues concerns his duties as President, for which he has immunity.

The other is the so-called "classified" documents case, which Florida Judge Aileen Cannon had already taken off the table. Smith had filed an appeal, but the DOJ will be dropping it now. We saw the most shockingly over-the-top abuses of power with that one, including collusion with the Biden White House to affect a massive land, sea and air armed raid of Trump's estate Mar-A-Lago. Looking back, it's hard to believe that something this egregious was actually done in the United States of America, especially when you consider that as President, Trump had the absolute authority to declassify.

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2024/11/12/report-melania-trump-has-one-very-good-reason-why-shes-snubbing-jill-biden-n2181879

Then there were three state cases. First, we have the RICO (!) case against Trump in Georgia filed by Fulton County DA Fani Willis, which also involved the Biden White House. That case is awaiting an appeals court decision.

Next, we have the New York criminal trial over "fraudulent records" relating to those payments made to Stormy Daniels. (Calling it the "hush money" case, as just about everyone does, is misleading, as this stitched-together case was based on an action that wasn't even illegal; namely, making payments on an NDA, or non-disclosure agreement, with Stormy Daniels, whom he still insists he never had an affair with.) The payments were listed as "legal expenses" in business records, which actually makes the most sense to us and many business and legal experts.

Since payment was made in 34 installments, the documentation of each check was turned by prosecutors into a separate count, a trick prosecutors use to inflate the charges. Voila! Trump is magically charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. In May, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on all 34. (If he's found guilty of one, you know he's going to be found guilty of 34, because they're all the exact same thing, just spread out over 34 times.)

Sentencing had been set for November 26. But yesterday, the judge in that case, Juan Merchan, announced he was postponing his decision on how to proceed in the sentencing phase in light of Trump's re-election. This was done at the request of the prosecution, which agreed with the Trump team that his re-election could have impact on the outcome of the case. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg now has one week, until November 19, to propose what he thinks would be the appropriate next step, which might be to scrap the case. (More on this development below.)

Finally, there's the New York civil fraud case overseen by State Attorney General Letitia James, who had vowed during her campaign to prosecute Trump on...something, anything, everything. That's the one in which Trump had supposedly inflated the value of his real estate holdings in a way that's routinely done in dealings with lenders, who always do their own assessments. No one was damaged, no one had ever complained, the Trump Organization got its loans, the Trump Organization paid back its loans, and everybody involved was happy and wanted to do business together again. Anyway, after a verdict of guilty in a New York court, the case is on appeal.

Prior to Judge Merchan's decision Tuesday to delay further action in his case, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung had said the sentencing should not stand, so that "as Trump said in his historic victory speech, [we can] unify our country and work together for the betterment of our nation." After the decision, Cheung said, "It is now abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including this case, which should have never been filed."

On Tuesday night, FOX NEWS host Trace Gallagher brought on criminal defense attorney Nick Bajaj, who said the case, after being delayed, is going to be dismissed. His explanation of the reason for this is clear; here's the problem:

"If we believe it took legal gymnastics to conjure up a crime that was not in the statute, imagine the legal gymnastics it would take for this judge to say, 'In light of the Supreme Court's decision regarding immunity, I'm gonna extract all the evidence that was presented to the fact-finder, the jury, that had to do with or came about while Trump was President.' [That would include] testimony from his aides, the completion of the financial form, for instance. This judge has to extract that, and then say, 'Hey, whatever was left was enough for the jury to come back with a conviction.'"

It would just be impossible to sort this out. "Now, why is this important?" he continued. "Because the judge can say, 'You know what? That evidence [relating to Trump's presidency] came in, it's harmless error, it's enough for the jury, enough for government work, let's go for the conviction.' But then it's gonna go to the appellate courts, [where] this case is absolute toast, and it's really a testament to the fact that it should never have been brought in the first place."

Bajaj also commented on the Georgia lawfare brought by Fani Willis, citing corruption in the prosecution for that case and contrasting it with another case: "There has been a highly publicized RICO case involving gang activity, guns, drugs, murder, shootings, and that district attorney's office fumbled the ball so much, they did such an incompetent job, that the lead defendant in that case was just given 12 years' probation, if you can imagine that…"

He said that with the "clear conflict of interest" in Willis' case against Trump, along with evidence of malicious prosecution, he doesn't see the case going anywhere.

Before Merchan announced his decision to delay, Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, who defended Trump during his first impeachment, said he thought the sentencing might not happen. "It should not happen," he told the WASHINGTON EXAMINER. "I don't understand the case against Trump in New York. If I had a class in criminal law, and they asked me to describe the conviction of Donald Trump, I couldn't do it. And so, if you can't even describe it or understand it, this is just no crime here. I think the only real impact of the New York cases, it probably contributed slightly to Trump's election."

We'd like to think so.

The penalty for Trump's non-crime could be as much as four years. Legal experts have suggested that although a full prison term is unlikely, Trump could still face fines or probation. The WASHINGTON EXAMINER summary, written Monday, the day before Judge Merchan's delay, is a good one.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/3225842/new-york-judge-trump-sentencing-hush-money-case/

The unbelievably huge conflict of interest faced by Judge Merchan in this case, the one involving his daughter's highly profitable work raising money for Democrat interests, has only solidified with time, despite continued efforts in the media to downplay it. Merchan should never have presided over this case, but efforts to persuade him to recuse himself were fruitless. So one might imagine that efforts to persuade him to drop the case will be fruitless as well. It's probably going to be an appeals court that says, "Enough already."

RELATED: In other partisan litigation, J6 journalist Steve Baker has changed his not guilty plea to guilty, telling presiding Judge Chris Cooper that he would not be put through a "shaming exercise" of a trial that he's realized has an almost certain outcome, given the judge's hardline stance. (Note: according to his defense attorney, a plea of guilty is not the same as a confession.) Here's how that went…

https://www.theblaze.com/news/breaking-steve-baker-pleads-guilty-to-4-jan-6-charges-to-avoid-the-shaming-exercise-of-a-trial

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