Donald Trump’s legal team is making a last-ditch effort to delay his upcoming sentencing in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case.
Judge Juan Merchan ruled last week that 78-year-old Trump will be sentenced in the case in New York on Friday, just ten days before his inauguration.
In a dramatic proceeding on Friday afternoon, the judge denied Trump’s request to dismiss the case and pronounce the guilty verdict against him.
Now his lawyers are asking for the sentencing to be stayed while they ask an appeals court to overturn Merchan’s ruling.
Merchan revealed that he is unlikely to jail Trump and that he could give him “unconditional discharge.”
This means that Trump will not have to pay any fines or serve probation. He may have faced four years behind bars.
The president-elect lashed out about the “witch hunt” of a case on his Truth Social platform, then called it “nothing but a rigged charade.”
He then called “acting” Judge Merchan “a radical partisan” and called the verdict “consciously unlawful” and “contrary to our Constitution.”
‘If you may stand, [it] would mean the end of the presidency as we know it,” Trump added.
In a dramatic proceeding on Friday afternoon, the judge denied Trump’s request to dismiss the case and pronounce the guilty verdict against him
He said that “Merchan has so little respect for the Constitution that he is imposing an illegal gag order on me, your President and the newly elected President so that I cannot expose his and his family’s disqualifying and illegal conflicts.”
Trump was furious that he was “not allowed to defend myself,” calling it a violation of his First Amendment rights.
In May, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying company records to conceal a $130,000 payment to a porn star – Stormy Daniels – to keep her quiet about their alleged affair ahead of the 2016 presidential election. years earlier.
In dramatic court testimony, Daniels went into salacious and lurid details about the night she claimed she spent with Trump at a charity golf tournament in Nevada. He denies that the meeting took place.
Donald Trump is to be sentenced in the criminal case in which he was convicted of criminal charges involving the payment of hush money to a porn star on January 10.
Lawyers for Trump argue that the case should be dismissed now so that it does not hinder his ability to govern once he takes the oath of office on January 20, 2025.
They also argue that the case should be dismissed because of the Supreme Court’s ruling in July that the president of the United States has immunity from prosecution for official actions while in office.
The case centered on special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump for allegedly masterminding efforts to overturn the 2020 election during his time in office, including on January 6 during the Capitol riot.
In Trump’s second motion to dismiss the case since his conviction in May, his lawyers argued that allowing the case to hang over him during his presidency would hamper his ability to govern.
Trump’s first motion — which argued that the case violated the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity — was unsuccessful.
Merchan noted last month that the The evidence presented at the trial earlier this year was “entirely related to unofficial conduct” and therefore did not amount to official actions as president.
“This Court concludes that if there was an error with respect to the introduction of the disputed evidence, such error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt,” Merchan wrote.
A jury found Trump guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying company records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet
In a dramatic filing Friday afternoon, Judge Juan Merchan denied the new president’s request to dismiss the case and guilty verdict because of his election victory.
Daniels’ testimony at last year’s trial lasted two days and included salacious details about her alleged affair with the newly elected president.
Trump’s lawyers argue that the case involving porn star Stormy Daniels should now be dismissed
“Even if this Court has held that the challenged evidence constitutes official acts under the auspices of the Trump decision, which it does not, Defendant’s motion is still denied because the introduction of the challenged evidence constitutes harmless error and does not process error has occurred. .’
Trump lashed out in a post on Truth Social in December, calling it a “completely illegal, psychotic order” by the “corrupt and biased” judge.
Prosecutors last week asked a New York judge to spare Trump jail time over his hush-money conviction, in an effort to prevent the case from being dismissed altogether.