Donald Trump's legal strategy seems to have paid off now that he's been re-elected as president without serving time behind bars for the crimes he's accused of committing, an expert said Tuesday.
The former president has been indicted four times on 88 criminal charges, and while he's awaiting sentencing on 34 felony counts in the New York hush-money case, the other prosecutions have seemingly stalled out or ended altogether after he successfully prevented them from moving forward, reported CNN.
“It clearly paid off to aggressively push to delay these cases as long as possible,” said Jessica Levinson, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School.
Trump was found guilty in May of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 26.
But Judge Juan Merchan agreed Tuesday to delay activity in the case until Nov. 19 to allow defense attorneys and prosecutors time to make arguments on how the election results impact the case.
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"If the judge decides to keep the conviction intact, the former president’s lawyers are expected to ask Merchan to delay Trump’s sentencing so they can appeal," CNN reported, "and if that’s not granted, his attorneys are planning to appeal the immunity decision to state appellate courts and potentially all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to ask the courts to delay Trump’s sentencing until all appeals are exhausted, which could take months."
Meanwhile, special counsel Jack Smith is in talks with Justice Department officials on wrap up the federal cases against Trump, whose attorneys have endeavored to delay those trials until after the election so he could end them himself if re-elected.
"Justice Department officials are looking at options for how to wind down the two criminal cases while also complying with a 2020 memo from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel about indictments or prosecutions of sitting presidents," CNN reported. "More than a half-dozen people who are close to the special counsel’s office or other top Justice Department officials previously told CNN they believe Smith doesn’t want to close up shop before being ordered to do so or pushed out by Trump."
The District of Columbia election interference case has been stalled while Trump asked courts to grant him presidential immunity, which the U.S. Supreme Court broadly did in July, and the judge overseeing the trial has not yet ruled on which alleged crimes should be shielded as official acts.
"The charges brought by Smith against the president-elect in Florida accuse Trump of illegally taking classified documents from the White House and resisting the government’s attempts to retrieve the materials," CNN reported. "That case was thrown out in July by Judge Aileen Cannon, but prosecutors have appealed her ruling, which said that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Smith violated the Constitution."
Trump's election interference case in Georgia depends on whether Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis is disqualified over her romantic relationship with another prosecutor working on the investigation, but sources familiar with the case say it's unlikely a state-level judge would allow it to move forward while he's president not matter what happens.
The former president is also embroiled in numerous lawsuits, including ones related to his role in Jan. 6, two defamation cases brought by writer E. Jean Carroll resulting in nearly $90 million in penalties and a fraud case brought by New York attorney general Letitia James, which resulted in a $454 million – and he's currently appealing those fines.
"It’s possible that all these cases continue to play out even as Trump serves his second term in the White House," CNN reported. "In a 1997 Supreme Court ruling stemming from a civil lawsuit then-President Bill Clinton was involved in, the justices unanimously decided that sitting presidents could not invoke presidential immunity to avoid civil litigation while in office."