Judge Juan Merchan ruled Friday that Trump’s sentencing will take place on November 26, three weeks after election day, ensuring that Trump will not be sentenced in any of his criminal cases leading up to the election.
In a letter to the prosecutors and Trump’s attorneys informing them of his decision to delay the sentencing hearing, Merchan argued that a post-election sentencing would eliminate any appearance of political bias.
“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution. Adjourning decision on the motion and sentencing, if such is required, should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to gave an advantage to, or create a disadvantage for, any political party and/or any candidate for any office,” Merchan wrote.
Naturally, many prog institutions (specifically The New York Times) suggested such a ruling puts Trump "above the law." But as legal expert Andrew McCarthy at NRO pointed out, it's actually the legally prudent thing to do.
The principal basis for Trump’s postponement motion is not that, if it is not granted, the sentencing would be a form of election interference. I happen to believe that would be true since there is no rule-of-law justification for sentencing Trump prior to the election — the schedule has been set by a deeply conflicted, partisan Democratic judge under circumstances in which Democrats want Trump labeled “a convicted felon facing a prison sentence” in the run up to the November election.
Nevertheless, Trump has a valid postponement motion because of the rule of law.
In one of Trump’s federal cases, the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 — a month after Trump’s state trial — that presidential immunity from criminal prosecution includes a derivative right to have evidence of official presidential acts excluded. Over Trump’s objection at trial, Bragg’s prosecutors offered such evidence, Merchan admitted it — despite being on notice that the Supreme Court was considering this very issue — and the prosecutors argued in summation that this evidence was “devastating” against Trump (making it difficult for Bragg to now claim its admission was mere harmless error).
In the criminal law, most issues cannot be appealed until all proceedings in the trial court, including sentencing, are concluded — e.g. Merchan’s disqualifying bias, his admission of blatantly inadmissible evidence of a key witness’s guilty plea to federal election crimes, his admission of a porn star’s gratuitous and unfairly prejudicial testimony that Trump may have forced himself on her, his refusal to allow Trump to call a key defense witness, and his failure to instruct the jury properly on the charged offenses or even require a unanimous verdict on a key charge, to cite just a few reversible errors in the record.
In addition to likely enduring some PTSD from his almost being assassinated two months ago, Trump was most assuredly overwhelmed emotionally at the prospects of being sentenced to jail. With that officially put off until after election, he needs to focus solely on the final 60 days of this campaign. When Trump is talking issues, he's pretty solid. And given the abject failure that has been the Biden-Harris administration, it shouldn't be all that difficult to tie VP Kamala Harris to a struggling economy, bumbling foreign policy and a swiss cheese southern U.S. border, all issues which voters strongly favor Trump.
Sure, Trump has been somewhat lucky this cycle in that he survived an attempt on his life as well as having the classified documents case against him tossed out. And now the delay in the "hush money" trial, which any rational thinking person should ascertain is fair and just. Time will tell if Trump can take advantage of all this good fortune.
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