George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said on Tuesday that Judge Juan Merchan is probably not going to dismiss evidence against former President Donald Trump despite delaying his sentencing.
Merchan on Tuesday delayed Trump’s sentencing from July 11 to September 18 following the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling finding presidents are immune from prosecution for “official acts” taken in office. Turley on “The Story With Martha MacCallum” said that Merchan’s history of ruling against Trump suggests the only significant change he will be making after the ruling is the sentencing delay.
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“The expectation is that Judge Merchan is not going to be inclined to order a new trial. The argument here is that you did indeed trip the wire during the trial because they incorporated conversations with people like Hope Hicks who gave her impressions about what the president was like in the Oval Office,” Turley said. “There was other testimony that was incorporated. The prosecutors included those points in their closing argument. So the defense is going to say you really can’t make that cat walk backwards.”
“You used this information. It’s not clear how it influenced the jury. The prosecutors are going to argue that this is sort of what is sometimes called a harmless error defense for prosecutors, an argument for prosecutors,” he continued. “That you can remove that testimony and it wouldn’t have made any difference, that the evidence was so strong in the view of the prosecution that it was harmless. So the question is whether Judge Merchan is going to be persuaded. He has historically ruled against the president, the expectation is that he will do so again. And that this will delay it but sentencing is still going to come in September.”
A New York jury convicted Trump in May on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records. The Supreme Court found that presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and “presumptive immunity” for all official acts.
Trump’s attorneys claimed the ruling indicates that some evidence introduced during the Manhattan trial consisted of “official-acts” that should have “never been put before the jury.” This evidence included Trump’s tweets and public addresses as president, his attorneys wrote.
