Where does Trump’s sentencing stand in New York after massive election victory?

After his massive election victory, President-elect Trump is still scheduled for sentencing in his criminal case in Manhattan later this month, with President Judge Juan Merchan only deciding whether to dismiss the charges entirely after the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity earlier this year.

Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records following his criminal trial in Manhattan in May. District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office worked to prove that Trump falsified business records to hide a $130,000 payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to squelch her claims about an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. Trump has maintained his innocence in the matter.

Trump is scheduled for sentencing on November 26, which is already a four-month delay from the original July 11 date.

Trump’s lawyers had asked Merchan to overturn the former president’s New York conviction against Trump after the Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents have substantive immunity from prosecution for official acts in office, but not for unofficial acts. Merchan is expected to rule by Nov. 12 on the charges.

“A normal judge would dismiss this case, and then the DA would have to decide what – if anything – is left, so that we could consider bringing the case up again. But Judge Merchan has proven to be nothing more than an ordinary judge .And so the catch-22 here is that if he was normal, he would deny it, but because he’s not normal, he’ll probably deny it. But it’s an immunity claim that gives Trump’s defense team the right, the legal right immediately to appeal his denial,” Cully Stimson, deputy director of the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told Fox News Digital.

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Former President Trump takes the stage to address supporters at his rally at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Wednesday. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Stimson said that even if Merchan denies Trump’s immunity claim, the Trump team will appeal the decision, and an appeals court also rejects Trump’s claim, the president-elect will not be jailed.

“For all intents and purposes, no matter what happens, if (Merchan) denies it, and the appeals court … follow the judge, and then the judge will sentence him. Even then, the Justice Department will come in and say, ‘Look, under the supremacy clause, you can’t impose on a sitting president a criminal sentence, especially imprisonment.’ And then that case will be on hold until Trump leaves office, but as a practical matter, this case and the Fanni Willis case are over, he said.

Judge Juan Merchan poses for a photo in his chambers in New York on March 14. (AP Photos)

Trump pleaded not guilty in the case and denied any such affair with Daniels. The president-elect had spoken out against the trial as a “sham,” while calling Merchan “corrupt” and “conflicted,” apparently referring to the judge’s familial ties to the Democratic Party. Trump also claimed the case as “lawfare” promoted by the Biden-Harris administration to hurt his chances of success in the 2024 presidential election.

Trump cannot pardon himself at his inauguration as it was a matter of state.

Former President Trump appears in court with members of his legal team for an arraignment on charges stemming from his indictment by a grand jury in Manhattan, New York City on April 4, 2023. (Reuters/Andrew Kelly/Pool)

Stimson continued that given the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity, it would be impossible to take a scalpel to the case and remove the evidence associated with Trump’s first administration in the White House and “official acts” in office from the evidence associated with his life before. he was president.

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“(Merchan) is not your traditional judge, but he won’t say there’s no immunity for Trump because… the highest court in the land has said that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for their official acts, and therefore he has to recognize that the question is whether he has the temperament and the judgment — which he has proven not to, at least so far — to apply it in a fair and impartial manner and dismiss the allegations,” Stimson told Fox News Digital .

“By dismissing the charges, it just puts the ball back in Alvin Bragg’s court. If Alvin Bragg wants to double down on stupid, which he’s done a lot, he can (reopen the case). But he’s not going to get anywhere with it, because by then the president will have taken office and the Justice Department will move under the Supremacy Clause that you can’t bring your case, your criminal case, against a sitting president while he’s president,” he continued.

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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks to the media after a jury on May 30 in New York found former President Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. (AP/Seth Wenig)

Fox contributor and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Andrew McCarthy also wrote in an op-ed for Fox Digital this week that Trump would not serve jail time in the case.

“Understand, Trump will not go to jail even if Merchan serves a prison sentence. Although the charges are felonies, they are not sufficiently serious under New York law to merit immediate detention; Trump will be granted bail pending appeal,” he wrote.

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“Given that Trump will not be sent to Rikers Island by a Manhattan judge in any case, it would be prudent to delay the sentence and allow Trump to pursue his immunity appeal. It would avoid the indecent exposure of the next president for the United States for a criminal conviction and sentence when he is about to take office,” he continued.

“Lawfare was terrible for the country. The resounding victory Americans have given Trump should be its death knell,” McCarthy added later in his piece.