Justice Juan Merchan: Trump Jailtime Never, Felon Forever
So ends this narrative arc.
In a surprise move, New York Justice Juan Merchan scheduled sentencing in the 34-times-a-felon future president’s porner peener payoffin’ case for a let’s-get-this-shit-over-with for THIS Friday, January 10. And though Merchan is insisting the felon show up in person or by Zoom, he’ll be almost certainly sentencing him to no-strings-attached nothing. No jail, no probation, he’ll be free as a dumpy bird. After all that.
UPDATE: Trump has appealed.
[I]t seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration, a sentence authorized by the conviction but one the People concede they no longer view as a practicable recommendation. [...] [A] sentence of an unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow Defendant to pursue his appellate options.
That’s not to say that judge Merchan doesn’t recognize this all as steaming bullshit. In an 18-page decision and order, he rejected shrieking little shit Trump lawyer Todd Blanche’s and his sidekick Emil Bove’s whines to dismiss the case on account of it was really not that serious, and their ridiculous “retroactive presidential immunity” argument. Merchan raked the defendant's ass for “his lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and the justice system as a whole,” and Blanche and Bove for “dangerous rhetoric.”
Merchan also cited Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’s end-of-year report concerned about “recent attempts to intimidate judges,” as if Roberts was referring to the many Trump-related violent threats against Merchan, his family and the New York courts, instead of the way Roberts dislikes how anybody with eyeballs can see that he and his five conservative cronies and Judge Aileen Cannon are corrupt as all fuck, and he considers it intimidation when people say things on the internet like, “Gee, it would be nice if there were rules against that kind of thing.” (Our Liz has a good rant about that!)
Trump, of course, responded with humble gratitude. KIDDING! He Truthed out multiple rambles in which almost every sentence is wrong, with a side of personally attacking the judge, of course.
I never falsified business records. It is a fake, made up charge by a corrupt judge who is just doing the work of the Biden/Harris Injustice Department, an attack on their political opponent, ME! He created a case where there was none. Keeps a “gag order” on me so that I can’t talk about how crooked he is. The Fake News knows all about it, but they refuse to talk. He may be the most conflicted judge in New York State history. The accountant testified, with total corroboration, that the records were perfect & totally above board. A legal expense was called, on the books, a legal expense. There was nothing else it could have been called. This was the so-called falsifying of records. I was hiding nothing, everything was out in the open for all to see. Every legal scholar of note said there IS NO CASE AGAINST ME. The judge should be disbarred! This is why people, and companies, are FLEEING New York - A corrupt court system.
He keeps going, but you get the idea. Such juicy whoppers!
I never falsified business records.
A jury of 12 randomly selected New Yorkers found that he did! Also Trump himself never even settled on a story about what those payments were actually for. First they never happened, then they were legal fees, and finally he excused it all with “NDAs are legal and common.” Which is true! He never would have gotten himself into that mess if he’d had Daniels sign one around the time of their disgusting, coercive encounter, instead of waiting until the week before the election. Or if he’d paid her himself, instead of getting Michael Cohen to be the middleman for the NDA of Peggy Peterson and Danny Dongerson. But that’s what you get when you’re a cheap procrastinator with expensive secrets. Nobody’s ever made more trouble for Trump than his own stupid self.
The accountant testified, with total corroboration
The accountant did not testify, because he was in Rikers for perjury at the time, and was liable to say any crazy old thing, so neither side wanted to call him. Remember good old Allen Weisselberg? He’s easy to forget. Weisselberg sure as shit didn’t want to testify either, because he was paid three installments of $250,000 for not testifying.
And though Weisselberg was cooling his sunken arches in the can, prosecutors had his handwriting on Michael Cohen’s statements doing the math for Cohen’s reimbursements, and Cohen’s emails to him, asking for the money. Also the buffoony Trump Org. controller, Jeff McConney, testified, and he admitted that the payments were reimbursements, too. Trump surely remembers this because it was one of the few days during the trial that he was awake the entire day, instead of sleepfarting the way he usually was.
Anyway, it’s sure a damn shame that this is how 34 felonies ends (though he has demanded the sentencing be put on hold so he can appeal). Not with a bang of a Rikers’ cell door, but with a sad little Zoom whimper. All of those jurors’ time, all of that New York State money, all those bazillion Wonkette posts about it.
But nothing will change the fact that Trump is a felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon, felon!
And now all of his cases are gone. But we’ll always have Manhattan.
In hindsight, it was foolish to think "the process" was ever going to save us.
Why is incarceration not a “practicable recommendation”? Just defer his sentencing for four years. What the fuck.