Trump inches closer to having all his convictions wiped with twist in hush money sentencing

Donald Trump faces the extraordinary prospect that the string of criminal cases that have plagued him will disappear now that he has been re-elected.

“Every one of them will disappear through some mechanism,” former Trump lawyer Tim Parlatore told DailyMail.com.

The first development that Trump could make free and clear is the November 12 deadline that Judge Juan Merchan has set to decide whether or not his 34-felony conviction in his New York hush money case should stand, following the Supreme Court ‘immunity’ decision. .

That offers a way out if Merchan wants to brush off the case altogether, although some legal experts think this won’t hold up on the substantive side of the case.

Many details of the case — “hush” payments Trump made to porn star Stormy Daniels through fees to his attorney during the 2016 campaign — could be portrayed as “private” actions outside the bounds of presidential authority the court sought to protect .

But there was testimony in the case about Trump’s conversations with former fixer Michael Cohen in the Oval Office during his presidency, bringing the case close to his term in office.

Another option: Judge Merchan, 62, could probably ‘postpone the whole case’ until January 20, 2028 and say, ‘I’m going to withhold the sentence until you’re done being president,'” New York criminal defense attorney Arthur Aidala told me. DailyMail.com.

New York judges can serve until age 70, meaning Merchan himself could still impose the sentence — at which point Trump, a first-time offender — would be 82.

Still another option, Parlatore said, is for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to take action himself to waive any punishment — thus upholding Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying documents.

“The simplest thing would be for New York to leave the sentencing unchanged, and for Alvin Bragg to go in and say we think a misdemeanor conviction is enough and that’s why we’re asking for a conditional discharge,” he said.

The most likely option, however, is that he is “going to give him a good kick in the back,” Aidala said, without imposing any jail time.

The president-elect will be sentenced in that case on November 26.

President Joe Biden faces a new one pressure campaign to pardon Trump as a gesture of goodwill to put what has been labeled by Republicans as the “legislation” of the past four years in the rearview mirror.

Speaking from the White House Rose Garden on Thursday, the president called on Americans to “turn the temperature down.”

He has an incentive to patch things up with Trump: The Republican has repeatedly vowed to go after Biden and his family as he retaliates against prosecutors and people he accuses of targeting him.

A source close to Trump’s legal defense predicted that special counsel Jack Smith would resign and the administration would move to drop charges against him

Judge Juan Merchan could give Trump a whipping — or jail time

Biden should “pardon Donald Trump on all pending federal charges, and relieve special counsel Jack Smith of his duties,” wrote Mark Antonio Wright in National Review, and then insist that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul pardon him for all crimes for which he was convicted in 2011. New York.

That would relieve Trump of the burden of doing what he said he would do: fire Jack Smith and end the criminal cases against him. Trump has said he would fire him “in two seconds” if re-elected.

But there are already reports that the Justice Department is now looking for ways to “scale down” its efforts in other cases against Trump — most notably the January 6 case in Washington DC and the charges accusing him of illegally take national security documents with you to March. a-Lago and obstruction of justice.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the administration moves to resign in the next two or three days,” a source close to Trump’s defense told DailyMail.com. “We haven’t heard from them either way.”

Trump’s secret documents in the Florida case have already been dismissed by Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon. Although DOJ is currently appealing, the FBI may rely on an existing memo against prosecuting presidents while in office to withdraw the appeal.

The January 6 case “is also going to disappear,” Parlatore predicted, although he admitted there is a possibility that Judge Tanya Chutkan will shelve the case for four years.

‘Does justice have value for a four-year stay? I don’t believe there is,” said Parlatore, who left Trump’s legal team after working on both the documents case and Jan. 6.

Trump’s case in Georgia, where he is accused of leading a conspiracy to overturn the election results (this time on Tuesday, he carried the state) could also go away, perhaps if the Georgia Supreme Court decides to ban Trump foe Fulton County DA Fani Willis to clear up the case.