Trump was found guilty in the New York trial on May 30 of covering up a $130,000 hush money payment to former porn actress Stormy Daniels by forging business documents before his 2016 election victory. Daniels later went public and reported a sex affair with the married Trump, which he denied. The prosecution assumes that the payment was intended to improve Trump’s chances of winning the election.
With the guilty verdict in New York, the 78-year-old became the first criminally convicted ex-US president in history. However, his lawyers had ensured that the announcement of the sentence was repeatedly postponed, most recently to November 26th – a date after the US presidential election, which Trump won on November 5th.
Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung spoke of a “decisive victory” for the future president. The “sham trial” in Manhattan is now “completely suspended.” Trump will begin his second term as US President on January 20th.
His lawyers are demanding a complete end to the hush money proceedings and are citing a Supreme Court decision that granted the Republican and all presidents in general extensive protection against criminal prosecution. They argue that the jury in New York should not have seen certain evidence because of presidential immunity.
According to information from the New York Times, the public prosecutor’s office recently expressed its openness to freezing the case until the end of Trump’s second term in early 2029.
The right-wing populist is charged in three other cases, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. This is about his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat through unsubstantiated allegations of fraud and his role in the storming of the Capitol by his radical supporters on January 6, 2021. Two of the three proceedings are likely to be discontinued during his second term in office at the latest, and a third could be postponed to a date after the end.
