Bragg Won’t Oppose Trump’s Request to Delay Hush Money Sentencing
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg recently filed a motion indicating he would not oppose a request by former President Donald Trump's attorneys to delay sentencing in his hush-money case, leading some to speculate about potential political motivations.
In his court filing, Bragg announced that his office would not challenge Trump’s legal team's motion to postpone the sentencing hearing, originally set for September 18th.
This development follows a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that grants presidents absolute immunity from official acts performed while in office. Trump’s legal team contends that this immunity might extend to the hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Earlier this year, Trump was convicted of felony charges for orchestrating these payments during his 2016 presidential campaign and for misclassifying them in business records. Prosecutors have now informed Judge Juan Merchan that they will not offer a sentencing recommendation, which could have included jail time.
"The People defer to the Court on the appropriate post-trial schedule that allows for adequate time to adjudicate defendant’s [presidential immunity] motion while also pronouncing sentence ‘without unreasonable delay,’” prosecutors wrote, according to the Washington Examiner.
The filing continued: "The Supreme Court’s recent decision did not consider whether a trial court’s ruling on that distinct evidentiary question is immediately appealable, and there are strong reasons why it should not be. Nonetheless, given the defense’s newly-stated position, we defer to the Court on whether an adjournment is warranted to allow for orderly appellate litigation of that question, or to reduce the risk of a disruptive stay from an appellate court pending consideration of that question."
This is the second time in recent months that Bragg's office has not opposed a sentencing delay, leading some, like RedState contributor Bonchie, to suggest that Bragg's actions might be a deliberate effort to keep Trump out of jail and avoid generating public sympathy for him, especially after Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt a month ago.
Since then, President Joe Biden has ended his re-election campaign, and Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the Democratic nomination.
Harris’s rise to the top of the Democratic ticket has boosted the party’s polling numbers, but some experts remain cautious about her lead.
“If the polling errors are anywhere close to what they were in 2016 and 2020, then Trump is in the lead right now,” Democratic strategist Julian Epstein told Fox News this week.
His comments come as the RealClearPolitics polling average shows Harris with a narrow 1.5-point lead over Trump nationally, a shift from the three-point lead Trump held over Biden just before Biden exited the race, according to Fox News.
However, Harris’s lead is narrower compared to the gaps Trump faced at similar points in 2016 and 2020. In those years, Trump trailed Hillary Clinton by 6 points and Joe Biden by 7.1 points at this stage. Despite these deficits, Trump outperformed his polling numbers in both elections, something Democrats are acutely aware of as they approach the final stretch of the 2024 campaign.
A recent Politico report noted that while some polls show Harris with a lead, there are significant warning signs. These polls suggest Trump is leading in key voter characteristics and that Harris is nearly tied with Trump in battleground states, indicating she is underperforming in critical areas.
“It’s still a very tough race, and that feels consistent with everything we know,” Margie Omero, a partner at the Democratic polling firm GBAO Strategies, told Politico.
Democratic pollsters are also reportedly concerned about repeating the polling errors seen in the past two election cycles, though party firms have been working to address these issues since the 2020 election.
Nick Gourevitch, a partner at Global Strategy Group, told Politico: “I don’t think there’s any pollster in America who can sit here and say... that they’re 100% sure that they fixed any issues in polling. I think that would be silly.”
Given the complexities of the race, Democratic pollsters are urging caution despite Harris’s recent rise in the polls.
“Every year, we’ve had different curveballs. This is a difficult industry,” John Anzalone, the lead pollster on Biden’s 2020 campaign, told Politico. “Something’s gonna happen in 2024. You and I, right now, don’t know what that is.”