Is Donald Trump above the law? Does he deserve ‘presidential immunity’ as his go-to excuse whenever he does something wrong? A New York judge has answered with a resounding NO!
Current Events :
Utilizing his decades-long cheat code to delay, delay, delay any and all court trials levied against him, Trump tried his tactic recently in New York State. ‘The Donald’ issued a last-minute request to push back the start of his April 15th trial regarding a “hush money” payment he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
Trump wanted the court to wait until after the Supreme Court rules on whether he is shielded from criminal prosecution by “presidential immunity” in another one of his criminal cases before holding him accountable. However, too bad for him but his bid was denied.
On Wednesday, Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan rejected the request because it was “untimely,” because Trump’s lawyers had months to raise the issue before the motion was filed in March, and because his offenses happened before he became president. Or, in other words, Trump can’t claim presidential immunity for crimes he committed before he ever set foot in The White House.
“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.”
Judge Merchan noted in his ruling that pre-trial motions are supposed to be filed within 45 days of arraignment. However, Trump was arraigned in this case in April of 2023. The judge also said that because Trump waited until “a mere 17 days prior to the scheduled trial date of March 25, 2024, to file the motion, his actions raise real questions about the sincerity and actual purpose of the motion.”
Needless to say, Donald Trump and his MAGA minions were fit to be tied over Trump being told “NO” and denied carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. So, they threw a tantrum and went berserk.
Trump led his pity parade by lashing out at Judge Merchen and his family.
“Judge Juan Merchan, a very distinguished looking man, is nevertheless a true and certified Trump Hater who suffers from a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “In other words, he hates me!”
“His daughter is a senior executive at a Super Liberal Democrat firm that works for Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, the Democrat National Committee, (Dem)Senate Majority PAC, and even Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump continued.
“He was recently the judge on an unrelated trial of a long term employee, elderly and not in good health.,” Teflon Don added, referring to Merchan’s sentencing of Trump’s longtime accountant Allen Weisselberg. “This judge treated him viciously, telling him either you cooperate or I’m putting you in jail for 15 years. He pled, and went to jail for very minor offenses, highly unusual, served 4 months in Rikers, and now they are after him again, this time for allegedly lying (doesn’t look like a lie to me!), and they threatened him again with 15 years if he doesn’t say something bad about ‘TRUMP.’ He is devastated and scared!”
“These COUNTRY DESTROYING SCOUNDRELS & THUGS HAVE NO CASE AGAINST ME,” he added. “WITCH HUNT!”
Hearing the call to arms, the MAGA crowd responded in kind.
“Judge Merchan thinks he knows more than SCOTUS by refusing to wait until SCOTUS rules on Trump’s presidential immunity claim,” wrote MAGA commentator Charles R. Downs. “In his decision, Merchan refers to J6 as an insurrection. Merchan’s anti-Trump bias is quite evident. Trump can’t receive a fair trial in New York.”
“HOLY SH*T: In a new filing denying Trump’s claims of immunity, Judge Juan Merchan calls Jack Smith’s J6 case against Trump in DC the ‘FEDERAL INSURRECTION MATTER,'” wrote self-proclaimed “insurrection denier” and political strategist Julie Kelly. “Can someone send this clown a copy of the indictment?”
“Should be thrown off the bench for being so political. Such political hacks,” posted “GuyFromTexas.”
Interestingly, Donald Trump thinks presidents deserve presidential immunity and the free reign to commit any crime their heart desires. However, it’s even more interesting that Trump thinks his make-believe presidential immunity “Get Out Of Jail Free” card applies to someone BEFORE they’re even elected president.
OK WASSUP! covers Current Events:
Judge says ‘NO’ to Trump’s presidential immunity claim.
MSNBC: Donald Trump just lost one of his far-flung attempts to thwart his upcoming criminal hush money trial in New York, which is set to start in less than two weeks. This latest failed effort was a presidential immunity claim, but Judge Juan Merchan rejected it out of hand. To be clear, this was a separate immunity claim from the one in Trump’s federal election interference case; that one is pending Supreme Court review, with oral argument set for April 25. Citing the Supreme Court’s decision to review the claim in the Jan. 6-related case, Trump sought an adjournment last month in the New York case, and he also sought to preclude evidence in the New York case based on immunity. But the New York judge rejected Trump’s outlandish bid for the simple reason that it was untimely. The former president could have raised it much earlier but only did… Read more »