Don't Fall For Merchan's Trap | Opinion

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

53% : With just a few more weeks, Trump could have sought review in New York's highest court (the Court of Appeals) and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court.
51% : Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley; attorney and legal commentatorJudge Juan Merchan's obsession with landing his white whale, Donald Trump, revealed itself this week in all its political dis-glory.
45% : People v. Trump was the only one of the four lawfare cases brought by Democratic prosecutors to reach a conviction.
43% : While Merchan has declared that he will impose a sentence of "unconditional discharge," which means no "imprisonment, fine, or probation supervision," he remains determined to make Trump the first felon to become President.
43% : But Trump could go further and order the Justice Department to open an investigation into the DA and the New York courts.
35% : Merchan and Bragg don't care about the punishment; they care about branding Trump as a convicted felon in time for the inauguration and beyond.
35% : As has been the case in the other lawfare cases, Merchan and Bragg's violation of legal norms may give Trump the opportunity to pull another political judo move that puts him on top.
34% : While Merchan denied during the trial that his purpose was to punish Trump for his conduct during the 2016 campaign, he could no longer contain himself as sentencing approached.
30% : Merchan might hope that once Trump assumes office, the higher courts might suspend the case until his second term ends.
30% : By entering a sentence this Friday, Merchan will make the criminal trial final, which will give Trump the long-awaited chance to directly appeal to higher courts.
30% : In his order last week, Merchan accused Trump of a "premeditated and continuous deception by the leader of the free world."
30% : Trump could suspend any law enforcement and justice-related federal grants to New York City; why should the federal government fund a district attorney's office or a court system where politics so blatantly outweighs equal justice?
30% : The only way to stop this destructive politics is for Trump to use federal powers to retaliate until Democrats are deterred.
29% : Even if he had tried, Trump could not have scripted a more revealing political act by Merchan, and, by extension, Alvin Bragg, the elected Manhattan district attorney, and the State of New York.
29% : But just as the 2024 prosecutions backfired by creating a rally-around-the-flag effect for Trump in the Republican primaries, the future President could again pull political judo that could allow him to turn lawfare against its Democratic practitioners.
28% : If President Trump asked for a stay, the New York intermediate appeals court may very well have stopped or even overturned Merchan's shenanigans.
28% : Alvin Bragg never charged Trump with "stealing" the 2016 election, and any FEC disclosures that he had to make about those payments were due in February 2017, after he already took office.
28% : The Justice Department could open a "pattern or practice" suit against New York City for attempting the systematic deprivation of constitutional rights based on political viewpoint.
27% : While Merchan may strike his best lawfare blow on Friday, New York may suffer a more grievous response when Trump assumes office ten days later.
26% : Or Trump could have immediately appealed Merchan's refusal to recognize Trump's presidential immunity as set out by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2024 in Trump v. United States.
26% : In other words, Bragg -- and Merchan -- sought to use New York state business laws to punish Trump for what is really a matter subject to federal campaign laws enforced by the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission.
26% : Merchan could well have suspended the proceedings during the entirety of Trump's second term; the sentencing would have hung above Trump like a sword of Damocles for four years.
25% : Prosecutors charged Trump with violating state accounting laws -- here, booking the payments to Stormy Daniels as legal expenses -- to conceal the affair from the public during the campaign.
25% : Trump should also press the appeals courts to rule on an emergency basis: Our nation will suffer if chief executives must waste time on complicated, time-consuming, and stressful appeals.
22% : Moreover, if vacating the verdict would damage the rule of law, and Trump's alleged crimes are so heinous, then Merchan shouldn't have indicated that he would give Trump an unconditional discharge with no punishment at all, which according to his standard is also inappropriate and damaging to the rule of law.
14% : Merchan also accused Trump of attacking him and other judges.

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