US elections: Trump's ability to move past legal woes faces New York test

By Erik Larson 

Donald Trump’s ability to quickly move past his criminal cases as president-elect will get an early test in New York later this month. 

In May, a New York state jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts for concealing a $130,000 payment to former adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleged the payment was part of a scheme to influence the 2016 election by keeping tabloid stories from being published. 

Find special coverage on US Presidential Elections here

 

Trump’s lawyers are expected to move to call off his sentencing in the so-called hush-money case, set for Nov. 26, and toss out the verdict now that he is president-elect. The 78-year-old faces as long as four years in prison for falsifying business records. 

 

 

It will be up to Justice Juan Merchan to decide what happens next. And even before he addresses the sentencing, he faces a self-imposed Nov. 12 deadline to rule on Trump’s outstanding request to throw out the case as a result of the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity. 

 

“Right now we’re in uncharted territory,” said Robert Tsigler, a criminal defence lawyer based in Manhattan who isn’t involved in the case. “This has never happened before, so the exact path is very difficult to predict.”

 

The New York matter is one of four prosecutions Trump had to contend with during his campaign to return to the White House, including two federal cases, all of which now face uncertain futures given the vast powers of the US presidency.

 

“The American people have re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate to Make America Great Again,” Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “It is now abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponisation of our justice system, so we can, as President Trump said in his historic speech last night, unify our country and work together for the betterment of our nation.”

 

Trump made it clear before the election that as president he will quickly move to shut down the federal prosecutions, both brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, because he will have ultimate authority over the US Justice Department. In theory, the government could drop the cases in light of guidelines that prevent sitting presidents from being prosecuted.

 

Either way, that would erase the threat of decades behind bars from the two cases, one of which was related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and inciting a deadly riot at the US Capitol.

 

A fourth case, in state court in Georgia, is also centered on the 2020 election. The case has been put on hold until an appeals court resolves whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be removed from the matter because of a romance with one of the prosecutors. 

 

Willis also won re-election on Tuesday and the Georgia Court of Appeals will hear arguments on her removal from the Trump case next month.

 

Although the Constitution doesn’t allow a president to tell state prosecutors to drop prosecutions, Trump’s lawyers will again seek to have the cases in New York and Georgia thrown out or at least delay them indefinitely.

 

For now, Trump’s most immediate legal threat remains his sentencing in the hush money case. While he faces four years, many legal experts have said a far shorter term is far more likely, or even just probation. But Trump’s lawyers can be expected to argue that any sentence would be wildly inappropriate for someone who’s about to be president.

 

“Trump’s legal team isn’t shy, so they’re going to be asking for every possible remedy and I wouldn’t be surprised if the judge obliges,” Tsigler said. “It’s a whole different ball game now.”