Denied - Part 2

Last Friday, Justice Juan Merchan rejected Trump’s bid to dismiss his criminal case. Barring intervention from a higher court, the president-elect will be sentenced on January 10 for 34 felony counts of creating a false business record.

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Trump’s [ensuing] Truth Social meltdown continued through last weekend. But in fact Justice Merchan’s opinion is just as great a rebuke to Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative brethren as it is to Trump himself.

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In December, Justice Merchan rejected Trump’s immunity claims, finding that, if the underlying hush money scheme was personal conduct, then discussing it with his presidential aides was also unofficial. That leaves only the sentencing, which Trump is desperate to avoid. He successfully postponed it three times, including in September because it would appear “political” to pronounce judgment on the eve of the election. Then in November, Trump demanded that the verdict be vacated and sentencing canceled entirely, thanks to his status as president-elect.

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Justice Merchan had little patience for these histrionics.

“Indeed, one of Defendant's most frequent arguments is that this Court should defer to the will of the citizenry who recently re-elected him to the Office of the Executive, notwithstanding an actual guilty verdict in this case,” he wrote. “Thus, whatever stigma that might have existed, will most certainly not interfere with Defendant's ability to carry out his duties — both as President-elect and as the sitting President.”

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“[Trump's] Counsel has resorted to language, indeed rhetoric, that has no place in legal pleadings” he scolded. “For example, countless times in their Motion to Dismiss, counsel accuses the prosecution and this Court of engaging in ‘unlawful’ and ‘unconstitutional’ conduct.”

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These ad hominem attacks are a blatant attempt to intimidate the court, backed up by Trump’s constant raving on social media, and the judge was right to call them out: “Dangerous rhetoric is not a welcome form of argument and will have no impact on how the Court renders this or any other Decision.”

In one sense, Justice Merchan was playing it straight when he quoted Chief Justice John Roberts’s end of year report decrying “intimidation” of the judiciary.

“Disappointed litigants rage at judicial decisions on the Internet, urging readers to send a message to the judge. They falsely claim that the judge had it in for them because of the judge’s race, gender, or ethnicity — or the political party of the President who appointed the judge,” Roberts lectured, adding that “public officials, too, regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges — for example, suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.”

But Roberts’s report is a shockingly craven document, likening legitimate criticism of the Court to intimidation. [...] Meanwhile, the chief justice blithely ignores the once and future president, who levels shocking abuse at judges, doxxes their family members, and ensures a torrent of death threats for judges, court staff, and prosecutors.

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Indeed, the only jurist Roberts could muster explicit sympathy for was Trump sycophant Judge Aileen Cannon, “whose decisions in a high-profile case” — dismissing the entirety of the stolen documents case on the novel and ahistorical theory that special counsels are un-legal — “prompted an elected official to call for her impeachment.”

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And so it’s impossible to read Justice Merchan’s “complete agreement with Chief Justice Roberts's views on this subject” as anything other than a subtweet of the person who has done the most to empower Trump, the greatest intimidator of the American judiciary in history.

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Merchan worked hard to Trump-proof his ruling. He telegraphed in advance that the sentence will be functionally nothing, with no jail time to impair the presidency or the presidential transition.

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Trump is also allowed appear remotely for Friday’s hearing, so any disruption or inconvenience will be minimal.

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Justice Merchan denied the stay, after which they filed a marginally less incendiary petition with the New York’s Appellate Division. During a hearing Tuesday afternoon, Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer tossed the bid for emergency relief, observing to Blanche and Bove that the timing here is entirely a result of “a series of motions made by your client.”

  Public Notice

Trump's bleats are embedded in the article if you feel like punishing yourself.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.