Report: Bragg Won’t Resist Request to Postpone Trump Sentencing

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has submitted a motion indicating he will not oppose former President Donald Trump’s legal team’s request to delay sentencing in his hush-money case, leading some to speculate that the decision may be influenced by political considerations.

Ahead of the weekend, the left-leaning prosecutor announced that his office would not contest the motion filed by Trump’s attorneys to push back the sentencing hearing set for September 18th, as reported by the Washington Examiner.

This move comes in the wake of a significant U.S. Supreme Court decision that grants presidents absolute immunity for official acts performed during their time in office, which Trump’s legal team argues includes the payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

In June, Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts related to the payments, which were aimed at boosting his 2016 presidential campaign and were later misrepresented in business records. Bragg’s prosecutors informed Judge Juan Merchan that they would not be providing a sentencing recommendation, which could potentially involve 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 stated, according to the Examiner.

They added, “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 filing, the second from Bragg in as many months where he has not opposed a sentencing delay, further underscores the situation.

Bonchie, a contributor to RedState, criticized the letter from Bragg’s office as an “incredibly transparent” attempt to prevent Trump from going to jail while also seeking to avoid a surge in public sympathy for the Republican nominee, who survived an assassination attempt just a month ago. “This is Bragg trying to protect Democrats from any possible backlash,” he asserted.

Since then, President Joe Biden has ended his reelection bid, clearing the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to be officially nominated by the Democratic Party at the national convention in Chicago this week. Current mainstream polls show Harris is now tied with Trump, marking a significant improvement from Biden’s recent slide in the polls.

Kevin O’Leary, a star investor on “Shark Tank” and Chair of O’Leary Ventures, has expressed concerns over the potential economic fallout from Democrat-led efforts to convict and possibly imprison Trump.

In a June interview with “Fox & Friends,” O’Leary discussed how he believes Trump’s historic felony trial in Manhattan could impact the economy.

“I would ask everybody, regardless of your politics, to think about the big picture and what America means to the rest of the world. It’s the largest economy on Earth. It has the best legal system, including the appellate system, which now Trump will go through. And if there’s something wrong with his trial, it wasn’t done properly, the appellate system will catch it. That’s what people believe about the American legal system,” O’Leary said.

He further warned that “belittling” a former president in the name of justice could have serious repercussions on the “American brand.”