QOTD -- A Felon Sentenced

 

“The protections afforded the office of the president are not a mitigating factor. They do no reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way.

"The protections are, however, a legal mandate which, pursuant to the rule of law, this court must respect and follow. However, despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict.

"It was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that once again you should have the benefits of those protections which include, among other things, the supremacy clause and presidential immunity. It is through that lens and that reality that this court must determine a lawful sentence.

"This court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction, without encroaching on the highest office of the land is unconditional discharge.

"Therefore, at this time, I impose that sentence to cover all 34 counts."  -- Judge Juan Merchan, sentencing the MF at his felony fraud ("hush money for porn star") trial this morning in New York City. "Unconditional discharge" is a sentence that allows the jury's conviction of the MF on 34 felony counts to stand without further penalties.

Trump To Be Sentenced On Felony Charges This Morning

 

Well, hallelujah and shut my non- attorney pie hole.  A small measure of accountability will come to the Malignant Fascist (MF) this morning:

President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced Friday morning on felony charges — a history-making moment he had tried desperately to make sure wouldn't happen before his inauguration 10 days from now.

The sentencing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. ET in New York criminal court, with Trump attending remotely.

Trump’s attorneys had repeatedly sought to stay the proceeding, which state Judge Juan Merchan scheduled last week. Their appeals to Merchan, two state appeals courts and even the country’s highest court over the past week were unsuccessful. Trump's last hope, the U.S. Supreme Court, declined to block the proceeding in a 5-4 ruling late Thursday. [Ed.:  Roberts and Coney joined the three liberal justices in the majority]

Had the sentencing been postponed until after Trump’s inauguration, his lawyers would have been able to argue that presidential immunity and his duties as commander in chief should bar the proceeding from happening.

The sentencing means Trump will make some ignominious history before he becomes only the second president to be sworn in for two nonconsecutive terms: He'll be the only president to have been sentenced on criminal charges.

Trump, in remarks to the media from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Thursday after the Supreme Court ruling, alluded to the possibility of further appeals, such as an attempt to appeal the verdict itself.  [snip]

Merchan isn’t expected to sentence Trump to any jail time. He said in a decision last week ordering the sentencing to proceed that he would most likely give Trump an unconditional discharge, a sentence that allows the conviction to stand with no further penalties.

He is, however, likely to blast Trump for both the conduct that led to his conviction in May and his behavior during and after the trial...

We feel as certain as we can be that any appeal of the verdict or sentence will be denied.  

The MF has been given a golden "get- out- of- jail card" by the 77 million people who returned him to an office he never should have held in the first place.  But as the article notes, the ignominy of being a convicted felon will sting for the rest of his worthless life.  For now,  he'll try to distract the media with more asinine bombast and comfort himself at his Florida millionaire boys club with his adoring cult members.  But make no mistake, this one hurts.

(Photo: the MF at his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 30, 2024, in New York City / Justin Lane, pool, Getty Images)

Stock's Down, Time's Up For Trump (UPDATED)

 

The dog that is Trump Media & Technology Group continues to fail bigly:

Before former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company made its stock market debut, many investors were lining up to bet on its collapse. After the company’s share price plunged following an initial surge, the appetite to bet against the stock has grown even more ravenous.

Trump Media & Technology Group, which trades under the ticker DJT, slipped on Wednesday to below $50 per share, extending a steep decline this week that pulled the stock down from its high near $80 and erased more than $2 billion of market value.

Trump Media is the most “shorted” special purpose acquisition vehicle in the country, according to the financial data company S3 Partners. Short-sellers bet that the price of a stock will fall. They do that by borrowing shares of a company and selling them into the market, hoping to buy them back later at a lower price, before returning the shares to the lender and pocketing the difference as profit.

The demand to short Trump Media, the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social, is so great that stock lenders can charge enormous fees, making it hard for short-sellers to turn a profit unless the shares fall significantly. Still, there is a lot of interest in taking the bet.

“They are looking for this stock to crater and crater very quickly,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3... (our emphasis)

We still like our suggestion that "ETTD" should be his stock's sticker symbol.

Meanwhile, in the Malignant Loser's hush- money- for- porn- stars trial, Judge Juan Merchan has decided he's seen enough of the delaying tactics:

The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's criminal case in New York rejected his last-minute bid to delay the start of the trial until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on Trump's presidential immunity claim. 

Trump had asked to push back the start date for his trial, which is related to a "hush money" payment made by an attorney for Trump to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, until after the Supreme Court rules on whether he is shielded from criminal prosecution by "presidential immunity" in another one of his criminal cases. The trial is slated to begin April 15. 

Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan denied the request Wednesday, saying it was "untimely" and that Trump's lawyers had months to raise the issue before the motion was filed in March. 

"This Court finds that Defendant had myriad opportunities to raise the claim of presidential immunity well before March 7, 2024," Merchan wrote. "Defendant could have done so in his omnibus motions on September 29, 2023, which were filed a mere six days before he briefed the same issue in his Federal Insurrection Matter and several months after he brought his motion for removal to federal court on May 4, 2023." 

Merchan noted in his ruling that pre-trial motions are supposed to be filed within 45 days of arraignment. Trump was arraigned in this case last April. The judge also said that the fact that Trump had waited until "a mere 17 days prior to the scheduled trial date of March 25, 2024, to file the motion, raises real questions about the sincerity and actual purpose of the motion."... (our emphasis)

Sincerity = none;  actual purpose = escape justice.

In addition to the Malignant Loser being held accountable, his "lawyers" should also face sanctions when all is said and done for filing frivolous motions and generally abusing the justice system in this and his other trials (see:  Giuliani, Rudy and Eastman, John).  Maybe add in a Trumpist judge or two.

UPDATE:  More bad news for the Malignant Loser, this time in his Georgia election interference/ RICO case:

Donald Trump attempted to dismiss his case in Fulton County, Georgia, on First Amendment grounds — but Judge Scott McAfee on Thursday denied the motion.

"Although the First Amendment is 'a broad umbrella that shelters all political points of view and shields a wide range of avenues for expression,' free speech — including political speech — is not without restriction," the judge wrote.

McAfee explained in simple terms that the First Amendment does not covers "categories [that] include speech integral to criminal conduct, fraud, or speech presenting an imminent threat that the government can prevent."...

McAfee's 14- page ruling is here (pdf). 

Trump Continues Attacks On Judge's Daughter

 

For the second time since New York State Justice Juan Merchan imposed a gag order on the Malignant Loser, he renewed his attacks on the Justice's daughter Loren Merchan. As the hush money / election interference criminal trial draws closer, the Malignant Loser is flailing out. From Politico:

"Trump has launched an assault on Loren Merchan, the daughter of New York State Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over a case centering on allegations that he concealed hush-money payments to a porn actress during the 2016 election. The trial is set to begin April 15.

'Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised, and should be removed from this TRUMP Non-Case immediately. His Daughter, Loren, is a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me,' Trump wrote on Truth Social."

In every trial he's facing, adopting the style of a mob boss, the Malignant Loser has attacked judges, prosecutors, and witnesses in order to portray the trials as biased and politically-motivated. One year ago, Justice Merchan had to warn the Malignant Loser against attacks on the court. Judge Arthur Engoron had to impose a gag order on the Malignant Loser during the massive business fraud trial brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James when he went after him, James and members of the court staff. Judges are concluding that the names of jurors need to be protected from disclosure so as not to endanger them at the hands of violent MAGA cultists listening to their cult leader.

The Malignant Loser, who has no decency or impulse control, and suffers from extreme narcissism, will continue to push Justice Merchan to act, which he'll then claim is "persecution" by his political foes and an attempt to interfere in the election. His script has already been written.

(photos: Ahmed Gaber for The New York Times, Todd Heisler/The New York Times)

QOTD -- Gagging Trump

 

“... Although this Court did not issue an order restricting Defendant’s speech at the inception of this case, choosing instead to issue an admonition, given the nature and impact of the statements made against this Court and a family member thereof, the District Attorney and an Assistant District Attorney, the witnesses in this case, as well as the nature and impact of the extrajudicial statements made by Defendant in the D.C. Circuit case (which resulted in the D.C. Circuit issuing an order restricting his speech), and given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount...” -- Acting Justice of the Supreme Court of New York Juan Merchan issuing a gag order (pdf) on the Malignant Loser for his inflammatory and dangerous blathering concerning his hush money for porn stars case in Manhattan.  This should be the template for every trial in which the deranged, lawless Malignant Loser is a defendant.  He's a risk to the courts and to public safety, and he needs to be stopped.