Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 26
Prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said they are not opposed to delaying Donald Trump’s sentencing for his criminal conviction in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that former presidents enjoy broad immunity for official acts.
“Although we believe [Trump’s] arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” lawyers from the D.A.’s office said in a letter to the judge in the case on Tuesday.
On Monday, Trump’s lawyers asked to file a motion arguing Trump’s conviction should be overturned based on the Supreme Court’s decision, saying the district attorney should not have been allowed to introduce evidence about official acts Trump took while in office.
Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsification of business records in May, and sentencing is currently scheduled for July 11.
Trump’s Monday letter to Justice Juan Merchan cited a March 7 pretrial motion in which his attorneys argued that certain testimony and evidence, particularly pertaining to Trump’s public statements and social media posts while in office, were evidence corresponding to official acts.
The Supreme Court ruled that evidence about official acts cannot be introduced “even on charges that purport to be based only on his unofficial conduct.” Trump’s attorneys said Monday that the “official-acts evidence should never have been put before the jury.”
“The verdicts in this case violate the presidential immunity doctrine and create grave risks of ‘an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself,’” they wrote in their letter, quoting the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Source: CBS News
