Judge Merchan’s New Ruling in Hush Money Case Called a ‘Massive Trump Win’

The judge overseeing President-elect Donald Trump’s New York state case in which Trump was convicted of falsifying business records has opened the door to potentially dismissing the case.

Judge Juan Merchan formally delayed Trump’s scheduled Nov. 26 sentencing in the so-called “hush money” case in a document released Friday.

Merchan’s order gave Trump’s team until Dec. 2 to file arguments over why the case should be dismissed. The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will then have until Dec. 9 to issue a response.

Merchan did not say in his order when he will issue a decision on dismissing the case.

NEW: President Trump’s sentencing date has been delayed indefinitely by Judge Juan Merchan.

Massive Trump win. The lawfare lost.

— Daniel Baldwin (@baldwin_daniel_) November 22, 2024

“Massive Trump win. The lawfare lost,” OANN report Daniel Baldwin posted on X.

Bragg’s office has opposed dismissing the case. Instead, the DA has been exploring the notion that the case should be in limbo during Trump’s term as president, which means that sentencing could not take place until at least 2029,  according to The Hill.

Defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove have pushed for dismissal, according to WABC-TV.

NEW: Justice Merchan pushes off Trump’s sentencing hearing and sets Dec. 2 deadline for defense team to file new motion to dismiss his New York convictions. pic.twitter.com/qD2W5Q0UMT

— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) November 22, 2024

“Continuing with this case would be uniquely destabilizing,” their document filed with Merchan said.

“Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect,” they wrote.

“The Nation’s People issued a mandate that supersedes the motivations of (the district attorney’s) ‘People,’” Blanche and Bove wrote according to WNBC-TV.

Bragg however framed his opposition to letting Trump off the hook as support for the jury system.

“We have significant competing constitutional interests — the office of the presidency and all the complications that come with that, and on the other hand, the sanctity of the jury verdict,” he said.

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley scoffed at Bragg’s concept of putting the case on ice.

The proposal would “allow a city prosecutor to put a leash on a sitting president for four years,” Turley wrote in an Op-Ed in the New York Post.

Turley called Trump’s election “arguably the largest jury decision in history.”

He said some evidence used against Trump likely would be stricken due to the Supreme Court’s ruling giving a sitting president broad immunity from prosecution for his official acts.

“The prosecutors not only elicited testimony from Trump aides in the White House but then doubled down on the significance of that evidence in their closing arguments.  Merchan could declare that the court cannot rule out the impact of such testimony on the final verdict,” Turley wrote.

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