Dem
47
GOP
53
Judge Juan Merchan has been pondering what to do in the Donald Trump hush-money case, and yesterday, he issued a 41-page decision addressing one of the two major questions that were before the Court, namely whether or not the verdict was based on information that should have been protected by presidential immunity.
Merchan's answer, in short, is "no." Actually, more like "NO." The Judge found that: (1) If Trump wanted to make the immunity argument, he should have raised it at trial, which he did not; (2) Even if he had raised the immunity argument, he would not have prevailed; and (3) Even if he had raised the immunity argument and prevailed, he still would have lost the case, as there was enough stuff to convict him that does not come from his presidency.
In theory, Trump could still win on the second part of his argument, which is that the entire case should be tossed out because he is now the president-elect. However, his odds there are not great, for two reasons. First, it's a pretty desperate, Hail Mary argument. Maybe a president can do damn near anything he wants while in office, but that does not negate the things he did before taking office. Second, if Merchan was preparing to toss the whole thing, he probably wouldn't have gone to the trouble of writing a 41-page decision explaining why the conviction was perfectly valid. (Z)