To say that veteran trial attorney and legal analyst Alan Dershowitz was unhappy with the decision by Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan’s to sentence President-elect Donald Trump with less than two weeks before Inauguration Day is an understatement.
Dershowitz has been a staunch critic of Merchan and his cronies like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – and declared that just the fact that Merchan made it clear that Trump will not serve any prison or probation time SHOWS the entire country that the sentencing process was nothing more than a “scam.”
Trending Politics reports:
Trump appeared virtually for sentencing at 9:30 a.m. on Friday after exhausting available legal options. After initially postponing the sentencing indefinitely, Merchan announced last Friday that Trump will be sentenced on January 10, leaving him little time to advance legal challenges. The judge added that Trump would avoid jail time, fines and probation in a decision that was made before Trump even appeared in court. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that president’s are entitled to immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted while in office leaving him out of reach of the Democrat judge’s courtroom once he is sworn on.
The president-elect did attempt to obtain a delay, though he was denied by a Democrat-controlled New York court on Thursday morning. The New York Court of Appeals issued a brief order on Thursday denying Trump’s legal team a hearing, effectively allowing the sentencing to proceed as scheduled. Trump then filed a last minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, though the petition was denied by a 5-4 vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, joining the court’s three liberal justices in voting against.
“It is the office of the President that bestows those far-reaching protections to the officeholder. And it was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that you should once again receive the benefits of those protections, which include, among other things, the supremacy clause and presidential immunity,” Merchan declared during the hearing on Friday. “Which include, among other things, the Supremacy Clause and presidential immunity. It is through that lens, and that reality, that this course must determine a lawful sentence.”
A few hours later, Dershowitz appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” and let him have it! “What we saw today was a scam, a ploy,” he said. “It started with Judge Merchan telling in advance what a sentence was going to be. I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve never been told by a judge what the sentence is going to be. When I go into the courtroom with my client, I tell him to bring his toothbrush because he doesn’t know whether he’s going home or going to Rikers or some other lockup. The only reason Merchan said in advance what he was going to do is to try to persuade the two justices of the Supreme Court not to take the case now and they use that fact.”