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To the surprise of no one, Judge Juan Marchand has again denied former President Donald Trump’s motion to recuse himself from his seat. I’m, of course, referring to the case being prosecuted by Manhattan’s progressive Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In early June, a jury found the former president and current Republican presidential candidate guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Not only has Judge Marchan previously denied the challenge motion, but he has also signaled that he intends to sentence Trump on September 18th, no matter what.
If you do the math, that’s two days after early voting begins in Pennsylvania for the 2024 election.
New York v. Trump: Marchan postpones sentencing hearing until September
Trump’s legal team has tried to avoid sentencing, and they have what would be a real weapon in a normal lawsuit.
On July 1, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the president (including former presidents) is (a) presumptively immune from criminal prosecution for any official acts performed as president, and (b) absolutely immune if the acts are core constitutional duties of the chief executive. The Supreme Court noted that this immunity does not apply only to the president: Fee but evidenceThat means prosecutors are not only barred from charging the president with criminal offenses based on his official acts, but are also barred from using those acts as evidence to prove other crimes.
The prosecution of Trump in New York was about politics, not justice. That’s why we call it “loafer.” The prosecutors and judges don’t care if the conviction is ultimately overturned on appeal.
There’s no denying that Bragg’s prosecutors used some of Trump’s official duties to make their case – in fact, they called two of Trump’s White House staffers as witnesses.
Not surprisingly, Trump’s legal team filed a motion to have the conviction set aside after the trial, based on the Supreme Court’s exoneration ruling. They also again argued that Marchan should recuse himself. In that regard, they argued that the lucrative political work that Marchan’s daughter did for Vice President Kamala Harris should carry more weight now that Harris has replaced President Biden as Trump’s Democratic opponent in the next election.
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on tuesday, Marchant rejected the motion to resign.Judge Marchan indicated his intention in a letter to both parties last week, and said he plans to rule on Trump’s immunity claim by August 16. But most importantly, he warned both parties to prepare to rule on September 18. He instructed lawyers to file any arguments they wish to make in the case as soon as possible.
Given the circumstances, it seems likely that Marchand will already decide to reject President Trump’s immunity request, and will likely sentence him to prison shortly thereafter.
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By publishing his letter last week, Marchand had been mulling over a brief for weeks arguing that the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and subsequent conviction of the Trump campaign should be overturned. He told both sides to prepare for a decision anyway. Clearly, Marchand would not have missed the deadline if he had intended to overturn the decision or recuse himself.
I suspect Marchan will rationalize that (a) Trump was not indicted based on a formal presidential act and (b) he would have been convicted even if Bragg’s prosecutors had not presented the supposedly exculpatory evidence. Such a ruling might be wrong, especially on the latter point (at trial, prosecutors called some of the testimony of Trump’s staff “devastating”). But Marchan has handed down so many outrageous rulings in this case that it would be foolish to expect him to change course now.
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Indeed, my own view is that another of the Supreme Court’s late rulings, rather than a immunity decision, will likely spur Trump’s eventual appeal. Erlinger v. United StatesThere, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that in criminal cases, the jury must unanimously find that the key evidentiary elements that affect a verdict. By contrast, Marchan denied Trump the right to a unanimous verdict on the hypothetical crime (conspiracy to influence the election by illegal activity) that Bragg alleged Trump had attempted to conceal by falsifying business records. The crime transformed a misdemeanor into a felony, allowing Bragg to avoid the two-year statute of limitations for misdemeanors.
But here’s the thing: Trump’s prosecution in New York is politics, not justice. That’s why we call it a “loafer.” The prosecutors and judge don’t care if the conviction is ultimately tossed on appeal. And it’s not like Marchand is actually going to put Trump in jail; Trump will almost certainly be out on bail while his appeal is ongoing. So Marchand can create the appearance of a stiff prison sentence without any actual incarceration, at least for now, and probably for the foreseeable future.
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The aim here is to allow VP Harris and the media Democrat complex to label Trump a “convicted, incarcerated felon” just weeks before Election Day, when Americans have already begun voting in many states, particularly the potentially crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Marchan denies Trump’s immunity claim and prepares for sentencing on September 18th.
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