Trump hush money judge delays ruling on immunity following election win

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00:00The US now and a New York court's decision on whether to uphold Donald Trump's criminal conviction

00:07in that hush money case has been delayed yet again with the judge postponing any decision

00:13or any sentencing until at least the 19th of November. The judge might decide to throw out

00:19the case on the grounds that it would be covered by the recent US Supreme Court ruling on presidential

00:25immunity. In May a jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records making him the first

00:32former president ever convicted of a criminal offense. More on this from France 24's Jessica

00:38LeMessurier in New York. Judge Juan Machan has paused proceedings in Donald Trump's hush money

00:46case. He was supposed to decide today whether or not Trump's conviction could be thrown out due to

00:51the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity but now we're going to be waiting

00:57a bit longer. Proceedings are paused until November 19th. This comes after prosecutors

01:02with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office sent Machan an email back on Sunday

01:08asking him to pause proceedings due to Trump's election victory and his upcoming inauguration.

01:13Trump had asked the office to agree to this delay according to prosecutors. They wrote the people

01:20agree that these are unprecedented circumstances. Machan now has paused these proceedings so we're

01:26going to have to wait until next Tuesday to find out whether or not Trump is going to be off the

01:30hook. Back in May a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a

01:38scheme to influence the 2016 election. That made him the first former president ever convicted of

01:44a felony. Now we're going to be waiting another week to find out what will happen.

01:50Well for more on this story I'm joined now from Washington on the line by Eric Lizanne who

01:57is a former US federal prosecutor. Thank you very much for joining us Mr Lizanne. Welcome to the

02:05programme. I want to start by asking you about the options for decisions in this

02:13hush money case that's coming up. So will they uphold the conviction? What about sentencing?

02:20What are their choices? What are they going to do now that Donald Trump is president-elect

02:25and has been convicted of a criminal offence? Let's start with what they're supposed to have

02:32been doing which was getting ready for the sentencing which had already been put off

02:37in order to wait for the electoral campaign to finish. Now the only thing that has changed since

02:44even the US Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity is that we have had the election and

02:51Trump has won. The law has been exactly the same since then and on the issue of the law as to

02:58whether or not the case was properly brought according to the new dictates manufactured by

03:05the US Supreme Court regarding presidential immunity there was already a decision and a

03:11strong position taken by the prosecution which was upheld by the judge that such a small portion of

03:18the case really touched on anything remotely relating to official conduct that it wouldn't

03:23affect the verdict and that the verdict should stand. So to the extent that that is now being

03:29re-examined of course it is a surprise. Nothing has changed other than the fact that Trump has

03:35been elected and therein really lies the issue which is does the fact that now the defendant

03:43is the sitting president not just the former president change the calculus? It can't logically

03:50change it in terms of the weight of the evidence against him or the way in which the evidence was

03:56presented to a jury or whether improper evidence was submitted because that's already been briefed

04:03at least that and ruled on at least by this level but it appears that the prosecution really is

04:09motivated by the fact that wow now the defendant is the sitting president of the United States

04:16do we really want to go forward and it may be a case where as we approach the sentencing here

04:23we might be advocating for jail and how can we possibly do that? So the prosecution seems to be

04:29getting cold feet and of course if they indicate that to the judge the judge is going to take a

04:34step back as well and that's where all the parties are now. So to get back to your original question

04:41what are the options they could throw out the case that would seem to make no sense but they could do

04:46that they could also say in light of the fact that defendant is now the sitting president we have to

04:52put the case in suspense or they could say in light of that fact we simply have to pretend like

04:58the case never happened and throw it out on that basis not on the basis of the sufficiency of the

05:03evidence those are the options now available before the court. Do you have any inkling of which way it

05:11might go? I mean you're saying that just because of the sheer messiness of this it might be the

05:16case that not that the conviction is not upheld because as you say it's hard not to uphold it

05:22nothing new has has come out but that the sentence might perhaps be suspended and then would would

05:29he serve his sentence after his term? That is one possibility and I think that's one of the things

05:37that the prosecution has and and the other side Trump's side has to brief and the judge has to

05:42rule on what would be the mechanics for imposing and and more importantly serving a sentence the

05:49judge did indicate even during the trial when Trump was violating contempt orders that he didn't want

05:56to impose what would be a normal sentence of contempt into those circumstances which would

06:01have been immediately remanding or locking up Trump because of the fact of the campaign and

06:06that Trump theoretically at least could be the next president now it's actually happened so we

06:12know that there's definitely worries there and cause for concern they they don't really want

06:18to be trailblazers and now they're in that position so that is one of the options that

06:23they could hold the whole sentencing in suspense or they could just say look we don't even want

06:29to do that we're just going to throw out the entire case I think the judge is really going

06:34to take his cues from what the prosecution submits now in the course of the coming week

06:41a lot of U.S. citizens think that the justice system in the U.S. is biased in this case

06:47biased against Donald Trump the those on the right think so but there are numerous

06:52instance why is there so little trust in the system in the U.S. is it to do with the fact

06:58that some of these are in fact political appointees I mean how does it work

07:03well I don't know if there's really that an organic bias as you say certainly there's a

07:09sense of outrage by Trump's camp that has been ginned up or stoked or amplified which comes from

07:17from the right but the evidence was overwhelming and I think most people see the strength of the

07:23evidence is indisputable and it was tried to a jury of Trump's peers now part of the argument

07:31that the right that Trump's base has put forward in objecting to this is that it took place in

07:37Manhattan and that supposedly everybody in Manhattan hates Donald Trump and therefore

07:43he couldn't get a fair trial there but that's where the crimes occurred and Trump was tried

07:48the same way as anybody else and everybody there the judge and the parties were scrupulously

07:53fought in the prosecution rather were scrupulously following the rules of evidence but we are in a

07:59very heavily politicized environment which has been stoked that way by the Trump campaign they

08:06saw it to their advantage to do that we're coming off months and months of repeating these claims

08:11and the defense against all of these criminal cases that have been brought against Donald Trump

08:16is exactly that that they're political and now the fact that they're going away because he's

08:22been elected effectively is going to give him further fodder to claim that but we have to look

08:28at the right but we have to look at the evidence it's been very very strong okay well we'll have

08:33to leave it that's fascinating eric glissand thank you so much for your time eric glissand

08:38former thank you so much we're going to move on now to germany

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