Big news coming out of the Manhattan DA's office, Popok. We've been waiting all this time to see what they're going to do, given the Trump's request to delay the trial, delay the sentencing, dismiss the case altogether, and his
claims that he's immune from prosecution while he is president because there is this this OLC memo coming out of the Department of Justice that says a sitting president cannot be prosecuted and obviously the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution would then make that
apply to the state level prosecution. So what does that mean since he's already been prosecuted? It's just waiting for sentence and it's waiting to see if he is going to how presidential immunity applies to this case. So really we've been trying to figure out what the Manhattan DA's office, my old office is going to do and we got big news today because they filed a letter
essentially acknowledging that the sentence has to be adjourned because they have to resolve this immunity question, right? There's this question out there is how does Trump versus United States apply to this particular case because they created this new category of evidence that can't be used in even if it's a proper prosecution of a private matter like this one was when he
was convicted of 34 counts, 34 felonies for paying off Stormy Daniels through his private lawyer, Michael Cohen. So even if that conduct is permitted and allowed, the Supreme Court created this new doctrine that essentially said you can't use certain evidence, evidence that would be, they call it immune evidence. And so it's things like Hope Hicks, who happened to be also a White House employee at the time. She was a communications person at the White House
And they had conversations while he was president. Was that allowed to come in or not? Judge Mershan has to make that determination. He has to look at the record and see, make that finding. And so that has to happen before he sentenced. And so what the Manhattan DA's office has essentially said was, we understand that we have to press pause on further proceedings, the current proceedings like sentencing.
But the immunity decision, we're going to litigate that now. So first, what has to happen, though, is the defense has to submit their actual motion to dismiss, because that's what they're seeking. They're seeking dismissal of these charges. The prosecution said they are going to oppose that. So they asked for a new schedule, a new for the defense to file their motion to dismiss.
and for them to respond. What might happen, so either the defense is going to file a motion to dismiss, or they're going to seek to stay these proceedings. It depends. Do they think they can stop them? If they do, in four years, this all starts up again, and Trump could be sentenced. You're looking at a situation where Trump actually could be sentenced to prison after he's president. That is really where we are, is to see what happens.
For those people who are disappointed that Trump is not going to be sentenced, this is something that we've been talking about, Popok, on legal AF multiple times. There really was no path to sentencing him before the election once he won because of Trump versus United States and this immunity decision. And because that has to be applied to the facts of this case, and it can be taken all the way up to the Supreme Court,
if Trump disagrees or the prosecution disagrees with Judge Mershan's analysis. So that is something that will happen, can happen, and won't happen before he takes office. So I think that what's going to happen next is Trump, through his lawyers, is going to try to decide, do we seek a stay of all of this and postpone it until after he's president? Or do they do this motion to dismiss and see where that goes?
Yeah, so the way that the year old office wants to handle it is they want to have a full briefing on the issue of the motion to dismiss on presidential office kind of immunity. And they want that all briefed by the ninth of December and have the judge make an ultimate ruling on that along with the immunity decision that we were waiting on the 12th for the judge to issue his immunity decision. I'm sure it's already written.
and have the immunity decision and the sort of this motion to dismiss all get fully briefed.
so that the court can make its ultimate ruling, but they've already signaled in this new filing, this letter brief or letter paper that we've gotten, that they are going to oppose any attempt by Trump to move to dismiss on the grounds that the post-conviction sentencing process needs to be outright dismissed
because he won last Tuesday. That is not they believe the law. Even the law as it relates to the prosecution of a sitting president, this is not the prosecution of a sitting president. This is a at best as they refer to it on page two of their
Filing, this is a temporary immunity from prosecution, but does not require the dismissal outright of post-trial criminal proceedings. Instead, they're going to argue, you can see it coming, that the sentence should be imposed at some point after we get over motion to dismiss an immunity grounds and other grounds. We get past that. They're going to argue that he should impose sentence.
but defer the sentence until after Donald Trump is done with his day job as the next president of the United States, meaning as you outline Karen, he'll go, he would go to prison in 2029 after he came out, if not earlier.
And so I don't think we'd see, I don't think their argument as far as I read this is going to be postponed the whole sentencing process until 2029. It would be sentenced, but defer. Now they, the argument on the other side is, oh, we can't have the shadow of a sentence hanging over the office of the presidency would impair and impede and undermine and listen, this is what happens when America votes for a guy who committed crimes before he was president and then elected in president again.
We're in unchartered waters, so to speak. And everybody recognizes, including in the new filing, that this is all going to go up to various levels of appellate courts, both within New York, state court, and also in over to the feds with the United States Supreme Court, depending upon the immunity decision and all. Pre-18 isn't just for the guys or athletes anymore. Whether you're a woman, looking at tone, a guy looking at bulk, asleep to bribe parent.
looking for an energy and cognitive boost or a grandparent looking to maintain or build muscle creates creatine gummies can help. Maybe you know you should be adding creatine to your wellness routine but you've heard the myths about bloating and hair loss or afraid of the loading phase. The reality is those myths are not backed by the science.
Proper creatine supplementation through CREATE results in no bloating, no cramping, and no hair loss. I found a new way to cut out that second or third cup of coffee in the morning, and it's through creatine. Trust me, I never would have believed it until I tried it, but I'm getting so much energy and focus from my favorite CREATE creatine gummies that that next quartado is no longer calling my name. CREATE delivers creatine through gummies.
Not powders like other brands? Create gummies are tasty, no mess, efficient, easy to take, travel well, and there's no loading phase. Creates creatine gummies are NSF certified for sport so athletes can take it without any worries about testing flags. Use creopure, they're third party tested,
Made in the USA, vegan, non-GMO, and have 100% natural ingredients with 1.5 grams of creatine monohydrate per gummy. Creates gummies are convenient, take them anywhere, and they taste great, so it's easy to stay consistent. So you get the long-term benefits of using creatine. Create comes in four fantastic flavors, orange, blue raspberry, watermelon, and sour green apple, a customer favorite.
If you're like me, you take your health and wellness seriously and are looking for a safe, extra boost. And with Create, I have found a simple, gummy way to body health and I can see the results. Get 30% off any subscription or one time purchase of Create 90 Camp bags at trycreate.co slash legal AF. That's T-R-Y-C-R-E-A-T-E dot co slash legal AF for 30% off your order.
So the reason for this kind of bombshell report is that the judge, just to remind people who are kind of new to this story that a week ago.
when we were expecting the decision on the 12th about immunity and the sentencing on the 26th of Donald Trump, we got instead off the weekend in exchange of emails between Todd Blanche, who has been nominated to be the Deputy General Counsel of the United States and could take the top job if Matt Gaetz goes down in flames. But he's still on letterhead as the criminal lawyer for Donald Trump. There was an exchange of emails between Emile Beauvay
act, let's see, assisted to the deputy general, attorney general in the Trump administration, writing to the lawyers for the Manhattan DA's office saying, we're going to move to dismiss, we're going to move off of what happened on the election day. We think the presidential transition act, even though we're not complying with it, is in play and it impairs and impedes the presidential powers. And so we want you to agree to delay everything. And they came back and told the judge, we think this should be briefed.
We think you should not issue your decision on immunity on the 12th, and he didn't. The judge says 10 a.m. on the 19th, gentlemen. And we just got our hands on it because it took a while to get through a process and get posted to the public docket. But today was the day that the government of the DA had to take its position about what should happen with sentencing, what should happen with immunity, and what should happen with the motion to dismiss that the
Trump wants the file with his lawyers if the DA doesn't want to agree to dismiss. And so now we have our answer. They're not going to agree to dismiss. They want full briefing on the issue of the motion to dismiss to be filed, not yet filed. They want a hard deadline for Trump's lawyers to file that motion to dismiss. They want a hard deadline for the DA's office to respond to it and have it fully briefed in front of the judge. They don't want the judge to do anything else in the meantime.
And because sentencing they know is fraught with all of these constitutional and immunity issues that'll go up on appeal, they're like, yeah, let's just stay everything. Forget the 26th, but we will. They sort of telegraphed and showed their bottom card of the deck of what they're going to argue when they said, we see this as a temporary immunity issue at best. And one day, Donald Trump won't be in office any longer. And that day, we know when that day is. And that's when we can deal with things like sentencing and the like.
So I think it's a very, I want to hear your opinion because you were in the office. I think it's a very judicious sober approach. I'd be shocked if it was anything other than this. And my question for you to end it is, do you think he ultimately is able to sentence and defer until the 29th or the whole sentencing process gets deferred until 2029?
That's a great question. So normally what has to happen is all of these post verdict motions have to be resolved before you can move to sentence. And because this is something that he will appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court, I just think from a logistical standpoint, we won't get sentencing.
even though I do agree with you that he could be sentenced before he takes office. But I just logistically don't see it happening. And so I think that's why the prosecution said to put over the sentencing kind of indefinitely. Because I think they see that it's not logistically possible at this time. One other thing I just want to point out, Popok is
when the defendant Trump was arrested originally he had to be released right and he's released on bail maybe not money bail but he's released on bail conditions right so there are conditions of his release he's still under supervision of the court in essence so it's just very strange that he is going to
be a sitting president who is going to take office while he is essentially on bail. So I just think it's a really weird position for him to be in. And here we are in these unprecedented times. But I think we're going to have to wait for his sentencing given it's all about USB Trump. It's all about that presidential immunity case. And that that's what's causing this. It's the Supreme Court.
By the time we tune in tomorrow for our midweek legal AF, which Karen, you and I do together for the Midas Touch network, we may have the next piece of paper in this new fast moving story, which would be the
Trump lawyers filing their paper about this, about whether they agree to the briefing schedule, the sentence, they're going to file something. They can't leave this un-responded to, since the Manhattan DA is sort of signaling and socializing their argument in advance in a little bit of advocacy, which I agree with, certainly I've done worse or better with judges in advance to try to get the first word in. They'll get their word in and then Judge Mershan, as he always does,
always comes up, I find, with a very reasonable logical approach to things. And that will come very quickly. So I think you and I in some version, we'll be talking about it in a midweek legal AAF. We'll be talking about it in a hot takes at least two more pieces of paper that we're expecting likely this week. Defense opposition and Judge Mershan, as he's charged to do, settling the dispute with the final order about this issue. And then we will go on from there.
So until our next series of hot takes on these issues, you've got Karen Freeman, Nick Niflo and Michael Popok tune in on Wednesdays. This Wednesday to watch our midweek edition here on the Midas Touch network and on audio podcast platforms of your choice. Watch Karen, who has another podcast as well called mistrial.
uh, where she, uh, she has a show at also at the intersection of law and politics with two, two colleagues that are also former prosecutors. And then we've got the legal AF YouTube channel, legal AFMTN for all of this breaking news. Until that time, Karen, anything else? No, it's just big news and it's just, at least the Manhattan DAs office made it happen. Yeah. The only one and they're not dismissing the case. Yeah. The only one. The only case is going forward that the
Yeah, the Georgia cases stayed indefinitely. Yeah, first to prosecute, first to convict. And here we are. So until our next time together, Michael Popak, Karen Freeman. Real quick, messages change their algorithm to suppress political content. Please follow our Instagram at MidasTouch right now as we head towards 400,000 followers so you don't miss a beat.
