‘That’s Not True’: Legal Analyst Slaps Down Trump Team’s Criticism of Hush Money Sentencing
New York University law professor Ryan Goodman waved off a statement from Donald Trump’s team alleging the president-elect’s upcoming sentencing in New York violates Supreme Court precedent.
On Friday, Judge Juan Merchan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for Jan. 10 after Trump was found guilty last year on 34 counts of falsifying business records. The president-elect made hush money payments to conceal affairs he had with two women before the 2016 election. Trump will be inaugurated 10 days after sentencing, which Merchan has said will not include jail time, fines, or probation.
In a statement issued on Friday night, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung, who is slated to be the next White House Communications Director, blasted Merchan.
“Today’s order by the deeply conflicted, Acting Justice Merchan in the Manhattan DA Witch Hunt is a direct violation of the Supreme Court’s Immunity decision and other longstanding jurisprudence,” he said. “President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the Witch Hunts.”
On CNN’s OutFront, Erin Burnett asked Goodman about Cheung’s claim that the sentencing runs afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. U.S. In that ruling, the court held that presidents are immune from prosecution for actions taken within their constitutional authority, but that they are not immune from unofficial acts.
Regarding Cheung’s statement, Goodman said,
That’s not true. So, the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling was about whether a former president is permanently immune from criminal liability for some of their acts while in office, like firing an attorney general. That’s what the Supreme Court ruled.
Today’s ruling is about whether a sitting president is temporarily immune for four years from any kind of criminal sentencing, criminal prosecution. And that’s what Judge Merchan was ruling on. There is no Supreme Court case on that. And what President Trump’s defense team was trying to do is saying that same principle, though, of immunity temporary, should also apply to a president-elect. And Judge Merchan declined to go that way. And it was a perfectly good argument on their part. But it’s nothing to do with the Supreme Court.
Watch above via CNN.
