Donald Trump may not be able to avoid reaching the White House as the first criminally convicted president in American history. In an unexpected decision, Juan Merchanthe judge who presided over the ‘Stormy Daniels case’, which made the Republican the first occupant of the Oval Office to be criminally convicted, announced this Friday that will pass sentence next Friday the 10th, ten days before the inauguration of the Republican for his second presidency.
Although Marchan has pointed out in an 18-page writing that will not impose imprisonment or any monetary penalty or custody or probation, ca option that he says he sees as “more viable”, with his decision to pass sentence maintains the sentence. And thus gives a blow to Trump and his imagealthough it is assumed that the president-elect’s lawyers will appeal to try to postpone that sentence.
If those appeals do not go ahead, Trump will have to appear, in person or virtually, he Friday the 10th at 9:30 in the morning local time in New York (3:30 p.m. in Spain).
The case
Trump was convicted in May of last year by a popular jury of 34 charges for falsification of documents and accounting to conceal payments that his lawyer Michael Cohen made before the 2016 election to mute porn star Stormy Daniels, who claimed that a decade earlier she had a sexual relationship con Trump.
Merchan, in his writing this Friday, has rejected Trump’s efforts to have the conviction thrown out for his victory in the last presidential elections, just as he previously rejected attempts to annul the conviction following the Supreme Court’s expansion of presidential immunity. Also has rejected proposals from the prosecution, such as postponing any sentencing until after Trump leaves the White House at the end of his second term.
The reaction
A Trump spokesman, Steven Cheung, has issued a statement denouncing Judge Merchán’s decision. “President Trump should be allowed to continue the presidential transition process and execute the vital duties of the presidency without obstruction by the remains of this or other vestiges of the witch hunts“, he wrote in reference to the several criminal and civil cases that were opened against the Republican. “There should be no sentence, and President Trump will continue fighting these farces until they are all dead.”
