Tag Archive for: pardon

Trump’s Legal Problems Evaporate As Americans Send Him Back To The White House

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

Twelve jurors in the Democratic stronghold of Manhattan may have convicted President-elect Donald Trump earlier this year, but a jury of nearly 72 million Americans voted Nov. 5 to send him back to the White House.

With the presidency secured, Trump’s two federal cases will be dropped and his state cases most likely will be too, though there’s a possibility ambitious local prosecutors could prolong the battle. Yet Trump’s risk of ending up behind bars has evaporated, even as a sentencing date remains on the calendar later this month.

“I highly doubt Judge Juan Merchan was going to sentence Trump to a period of incarceration regardless of the outcome  of the election, but Trump winning makes it logistically impossible and a certainty that he won’t receive any time,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Merchan, who set a Nov. 26 sentencing date for the case brought by Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, is still weighing Trump’s motion to dismiss the case based on presidential immunity.

Even if he issues a prison sentence, there’s no way Trump could serve time because “a state cannot interfere with a President’s ability to do his job, which he could not do from prison, and the Secret Service would not be able to guarantee his safety,” John Malcolm, vice president for the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Constitutional Government and former deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Criminal Division, told the DCNF.

Trump’s sentencing was initially scheduled for just days before the Republican National Convention in July. The Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling prompted months of delays.

Rahmani said Merchan doesn’t “have the stomach to imprison a former president or president-elect,” pointing to his decision not to confine Trump after he found him in violation of the gag order ten times.

“Nor would it be appropriate for a defendant with no criminal history convicted of Class E felonies (the least serious under New York law),” Rahmani said.

Jack Smith, You’re Fired

After inauguration, it’s game over for special counsel Jack Smith, who Trump has said he will fire “within two seconds” of taking office.

The Department of Justice is already considering how to “wind down” Trump’s federal election interference case and classified documents case, realizing there is no chance of holding a trial in either one, NBC News reported Wednesday afternoon. The special counsel’s office declined to provide further comment to the DCNF.

DOJ policy states that the “indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”

Smith aggressively pursued the case in the final weeks before the election, pushing Judge Tanya Chutkan to allow him to publicly file a motion detailing his evidence against Trump. Trump’s attorneys repeatedly slammed Smith’s moves as election interference.

Smith also persisted after the federal judge overseeing the classified documents case found his appointment unconstitutional, appealing her ruling to the 11th Circuit. Even after Trump narrowly avoided an assassination attempt in July, the DOJ continued pursuing the cases.

Still, nearly two years of litigation initiated by Smith and others — which spawned four criminal indictments, civil lawsuits, a mug shot and a drawn out criminal trial resulting in a felony conviction — did not prevent Trump from becoming the 47th president of the United States.

“Smith does arguably have the authority to try to continue to prosecute until the inauguration, but that could cause President Biden and the Dems more criticism than benefit since there’s no way they could actually get to trial before then,” former federal prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky told the DCNF.

‘Cannot Be Pursued’

Trump’s other state-level cases likely will disappear along with the federal indictments, legal experts told the DCNF. “Now that Trump has won, his criminal problems go away,” Rahmani said. “It’s well established that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted.”

Cherkasky noted the Supreme Court “has essentially ruled that state legal proceedings cannot be pursued while a person is President, so that would effectively pause those cases, but not end them entirely.”

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ case against Trump is expected to collapse.

Willis, who won reelection Tuesday night against her Republican challenger, still faces disqualification as a state appeals court weighs defendants’ arguments. Her relationship with the special prosecutor she appointed, Nathan Wade, derailed the case in January.

Willis’ office did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s question about her plans.

“At the very least, if the case is not dismissed, it will be held in abeyance until Trump completes his term, although it might proceed against the other defendants,” Malcolm said.

Rahmani suggested waiting four years to continue the prosecution “would not be an option” because of Trump’s right to a speedy trial.

As for Trump’s civil fraud case brought by Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, judges who heard his appeal in September appeared inclined to reverse the over $450 million judgement against him.

“I think there are good odds that the appellate court will reverse some or all of that case which would return the case back down to the trial court. If that happens, there will not be enough time to retry that case before inauguration,” Cherkasky said. “Trump’s civil sexual misconduct case is also on appeal and faces many strong appellate issues. There is no reasonable likelihood that there will be final resolution of that case ahead of inauguration.”

Responding to the election results, James said Wednesday her office is “prepared to fight back once again” using the “rule of law.”

Cherkasky argued Trump is “not completely out of the woods yet.”

“A traditional view of the DOJ’s policies and prior SCOTUS rulings suggest none of these cases can proceed once Trump is in office, however, any of the aggressive opposing attorneys involved could try to press their case past inauguration which would require the Supreme Court to draw a more definitive line in the sand about what types of litigation are permitted against a sitting president,” he said.

AUTHOR

Katelynn Richardson

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Trump Campaign Says It Raked In $34 Million After Guilty Verdict

Judge Chutkan Says It Would Be ‘Election Interference’ If She Didn’t Release Jack Smith’s Evidence Against Trump

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

WATCH: Hero DeSantis Pardons Couple Arrested For Keeping Gym Open, Then Pardons Anyone Arrested For Not Masking Or Social Distancing

/in , , , , , , /by

Once again, Governor DeSantis is the best governor in the nation. DeSantis has not subscribed (despite enormous pressure) to the pandemic policies of the Left. Policies that have devastated New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and California. Today, Florida is open, free, prosperous, and safe. That is why millions of Americans are moving to the Sunshine State. #DeSantis2024.

WATCH: DeSantis Pardons Couple Arrested For Keeping Gym Open, Then Pardons Anyone Arrested For Not Masking Or Social Distancing

By Daily Wire, May 13, 2021

On Tuesday night, appearing on Fox News’ “Ingraham Angle” with host Laura Ingraham and her guests, a husband and wife who had been arrested in their county for keeping their gym open during the coronavirus pandemic, Florida Governor DeSantis announced live on national television that he would make sure they were pardoned, then added that he would make sure pardons were issued “for any Floridian that may have outstanding infractions for things like masks and social distancing.”

As far back as last September DeSantis had stated, “All outstanding fines and penalties that have been applied against individuals are suspended. I think we need to get away from trying to penalize people for social distancing and just work with people constructively.”

But some counties still punished residents for refusing to wear masks or countenancing such behavior; in Broward County, Mike and Jillian Carnevale, gym owners from Plantation, Florida, were repeatedly arrested for refusing to enforce a mask mandate.

A GoFundMe page set up by supporters of the Carnevales provides the following timeline of their case:

In direct retaliation to a lawsuit filed on July 26, 2020, Broward County began harassing Mike and Jillian Carnevale at the gym they owned. Taking a stand for the health and freedom of his community and country, Mike Carnevale was arrested on July 27th, August 6th, and August 7th for not enforcing facial coverings during strenuous exercise.  Jillian Carnevale was also arrested on August 7th. On October 15th 2020, Broward county attacked freedom and wellness yet again by leveraging them out of our business and closing their community gym for good.  This has left Mike and Jillian Carnevale in a state of shock and financial devastation, but this was not satisfactory for Broward County.  On February 10th, 2021, Judge Robert Diaz offered a plea deal of 10 days in Jail and a diversion program to Mike Carnevale for the crime of “Violation of Disaster Preparedness Emergency Management.”

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Quick note: Tech giants are snuffing us out. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense permenently banned us. Facebook, Twitter, Google search et al have shadowbanned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. Help us fight. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW more than ever. Share our posts on social and with your email contacts.

The Stone Commute Highlighted Democrats’ Hypocrisy––But Now They’re Waking Up

/in , , , , /by

“Trump Spares Stone from Imprisonment, Sparking Howls of Amnesiac Democrats” was the colorful headline of a recent Wall St. Journal by journalist, author and former Asst. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY, Andrew C. McCarthy.

The “Stone” in the headline referred to Roger Stone, a longtime associate of President Trump who was sentenced to 40 months in prison two years ago for lying to Congress, among other counts, during the failed fiasco of the Mueller investigation into the non-existent collusion of then-candidate Trump with Russian operatives to rig the 2016 election in his favor.

Stone, now 67, was arrested in a predawn raid on his home by a heavily armed SWAT team, a saga that was “coincidentally” caught by a CNN camera crew who just happened to be parked outside his home at 4 a.m. Imagine that.

According to Jan Wolfe from Reuters, Stone had connections to the WikiLeaks website, which released damaging emails about Trump’s election rival Hillary Clinton. Uh oh…can’t have those damning e-mails released. Hence the sadistically harsh sentence––the original recommendation was seven-to-nine years––and the brouhaha about Stone’s commutation.

Of course, the leftwing media were “outraged,” “shocked,” “appalled” at President Trump’s miscarriage of justice, although interestingly the president didn’t issue a full pardon, so the felony conviction of Mr. Stone still stands, as does his appeal.

GLARING HYPOCRISY

But you would think, as reported by investigative journalist Mark Hyman, that he had just pardoned two-dozen FALN Puerto-Rican terrorists who murdered at least 24 people.

Or commuted the 58-year sentence of far-left terrorist Susan Rosenberg after only 16 years. It is so consistent with her hate-America mindset that today, Rosenberg is a member of the board of directors for the left-wing group that handles the donations made to the Marxist-front organization, Black Lives Matter (BLM).

Or pardoned Marc Rich, who renounced his U.S. citizenship, traded illegally with Cuba, did business with Iran while it held 52 U.S. hostages, and with Libya which was responsible for the Pan Am 103 bombing that killed 189 Americans.

Oops, that was Pres. Bill Clinton. Just before good ole boy Bill issued the pardons, Rich gave $450,000 to the Clinton Library and his wife Denise donated over a million dollars to the Democrat Party and the Clinton Foundation. Imagine that.

But there is more. According to Spectator journalist Hyman, “the 56 clemency petitions Clinton approved during his first term were the fewest of any president since Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third commander-in-chief, who issued a mere 45 clemencies. Consider Jefferson’s clemencies were given when the U.S. had a population of only 5 million compared to the 285 million during Clinton’s first term.”

But everything changed when Hillary decided to run for U.S. Senator from New York. After her decision, Hyman says, “Bill doled out 380 pardons and commutations. Clemency was dished-out in return for money, gifts, and influence…Hillary stockpiled financial and political IOUs and cashed-in when she ran for political office, including the presidency.” Imagine that.

Again, not one word of outrage from the craven media.

A FATAL ATTRACTION TO MISCREANTS

Many of Barack Obama’s pardons and commutations were for drug dealers and violent offenders. He pardoned Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, the traitor who leaked hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents to WikiLeaks and was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison. He pardoned the convicted terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera, the leader of the FALN, responsible for 130 attacks in the U.S., who was serving a 70-year sentence when Obama set him free, the list is long. That is the very very short list.

Remember the media’s indignation? Me neither.

But Stone’s mortal sin was that he lied to––guess who?––the proven pathological liars in the Obama regime’s FBI, CIA, DOJ, et al, who were trying to frame candidate and then President Trump. Nothing less than the guillotine for him!

MEDIA MALFEASANCE

Well, whaddaya know? The entire uproar is already off the radar as the corrupt media are now back to:

ARE THE TABLES TURNING?

The vast American public out there already knows of the Democrats’ double standards.

They see the breakdown of law and order in Democrat-run cities and its encroachment into the suburbs and don’t want any of that wanton violence in their state, city, or the block they live on.

Even Regressives are horrified by the No-Bail laws enacted by Democrat legislators when they see that the psychopathic criminals who are setting cars on fire and committing violent assaults walk free, as did the thugs who attacked and smashed the faces of high-ranking police officials in NY City the other day.

And they are watching Joe Biden’s rapid and pitiful devolution.

On the positive side, President Trump is opening up America and, happily, the Democrats themselves are now waking up! According to an article in The New York Times, “Two-thirds of battleground state voters who chose Trump in 2016 but selected Democrats in the midterms say they will return to the president” [in 2020].

©All rights reserved.