Manhattan DA rips Trump’s effort to 'improperly circumvent NY State courts'

10 September 2024

Donald Trump's sentencing on 34 criminal counts was delayed once again when Justice Juan Merchan opted to move the sentencing date from September 18 to November 26, which will be three weeks after the 2024 presidential election. Critics of Merchan's decision argued that Trump was once again delaying accountability, but Merchan, in his ruling, wrote that he wanted to "dispel any suggestion that the court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or create a disadvantage for, any political party."

Trump's legal team, meanwhile, has been trying to get Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s hush money/falsified business records case moved from New York State court to federal court. But Bragg is pushing back, arguing that Trump's "attempt to improperly circumvent the New York State courts" should be rejected.

On Monday, September 9, Bragg's office told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that the case should remain in New York State.

Law & Crime's Matt Naham reports, "Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg (D), in a Monday filing on the eve of the Second Circuit panel's scheduled handling of Trump's motion for a stay, in so many words said that the former president doesn't really have anything to appeal other than Senior U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein's denial of leave to file a removal notice. When the post-trial removal notice was first filed, Acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan still had a September 18 sentencing date in place, but the landscape has changed since then, ensuring that there will be no Trump sentencing until after the 2024 election."

Naham adds, "This and other factors featured prominently in the DA's latest opposition filing."

Trump's team has also asked Merchan to recuse himself from the case — a request the Manhattan judge has adamantly resisted.

Bragg's office told the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, "This Court should deny any stay pending appeal. The stay requested by defendant is not only legally unavailable, but also unnecessary in light of the state criminal court's adjournment of the sentencing. First, as an initial matter, defendant mischaracterizes the nature of this appeal in a way that leads him to request equitable relief that this Court cannot grant."

Bragg's office added, "Defendant's motion purports to seek a stay of 'the district court’s September 3, 2024 remand order' and assumes that such a stay would spare him from 'litigat[ing] his Presidential immunity defense' in state court and from being sentenced."

Read Matt Naham's full article for Law & Crime at this link.

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