Trump suddenly hit with NIGHTMARE news on sentencing

Ajouté : 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]You're watching the legal breakdown. All right, so Glenn, Donald Trump's already very bad week just got a lot worse. So, we're going to take a look back into the New York courtroom where his last stitch effort to overturn his 34 criminal convictions just ran into a major roadblock. So, what just happened here, >> Ryan? It's looking like Donald Trump might actually go to sentencing on his 34 felony convictions come September 18th. Why do I say that? Because the prosecutors in the case, Alvin Bragg and his team of prosecutors that convicted Donald Trump of those 34 felony counts, just filed their opposition in court to Donald Trump's motion trying to convince the presiding judge, Juan Marshawn, to toss out all 34 felony convictions based on the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision. Well, Alvin Bragg's prosecutors just filed a scorched earth opposition that said, "Look, the Supreme Court said a president might be above the law for official presidential acts, but guess what? Virtually nothing Donald Trump did in when he was committing the crimes in New York for which he has been convicted, none of it involved official presidential conduct. It was all private. It was all criminal in violation of New York state law. And none of it is impacted by the Supreme Court's pretty horrific new ruling that a president can violate the laws of the United States with impunity and can't be held criminally accountable. They said basically it doesn't apply given the facts, given the evidence uh of his New York State convictions. And you know, if you want to drill down a little bit, I don't want to turn this into a legal breakdown uh law school class, but just bear with me here. What they said is none of it was official presidential conduct. However, if a judge decides that there was some smattering, some bits and pieces of things Donald Trump did after he was sworn in as president and somebody might conclude they look somewhat official. Guess what? You can excise that evidence from the case. You can take it out of the case and his convictions should still be affirmed.

[00:02:02]Why is that? Because there's a doctrine in the law called harmless error. every single criminal trial um that is conducted, you know, all around our nation every day, mistakes are made.

[00:02:14]That won't come as a surprise to anybody. These are human endeavors.

[00:02:17]Prosecutors make mistakes, defense attorneys make mistakes, judges make mistakes. But there's a doctrine in the law that says notwithstanding the fact that lots of mistakes are made at trial.

[00:02:28]If the mistake is not such that it provided just dramatically incriminating evidence such that without that evidence that came in mistakenly the guy the defendant would have been found not guilty then the the doctrine of harmless error says the conviction can still be affirmed. I'll give you a quick example.

[00:02:46]some witnesses testifying and some little bit of their testimony was hearsay and it should not have been admitted. It shouldn't have gone to the jury. That happens every day in criminal trials. The appellet court will look at that piece of hearsay that came in inappropriately in violation of the rules of evidence and they'll say, "Yeah, all of the other incriminating evidence sustains and supports the conviction. So that hearsay doesn't matter and we affirm the conviction on appeal." So the doctrine harmless error if there was any error at all will save the the case that that Donald Trump has been convicted in and it is because of that and if anybody wants to read a really wellcraftrafted nearly 70page motion from a team of prosecutors read what Alvin Bragg's team just filed. I am more optimistic now than ever Brian that Donald Trump will be going to sentencing on September 18th for those 34 felony convictions.

[00:03:39]>> Okay, I'll take it. Uh Glenn, even if Donald Trump did have a basis to get this case thrown away, which we now know based on on Alvin Bragg's motion making a very compelling argument as to why the Supreme Court's immunity decision doesn't apply here because again all of Donald Trump's criminal activity happened while he was running to be president, not while he was actually president. Um he also raised this issue too late. So wouldn't this whole thing just be moot anyway?

[00:04:01]>> Yes and no. It's a great question because usually if you miss a filing deadline, you're out of luck, right? Um, however, because the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity came down fairly recently, it didn't even before the Supreme Court ruled that a president is essentially a king above the law, can't be prosecuted for the crimes he commits against the American people. So, it's not as if there was an opportunity to file the motion that Donald Trump's team filed based on presidential immunity before the Supreme Court handed down the presidential immunity decision. So that's why Judge Man said, "Look, I'm going to give you leeway. I'm going to let you file your motion. We we'll probably have a hearing. I'll hear you on our arguments, but then I'm going to resolve it." So technically, it feels like it might have come too late, but I think, you know, the courts can be pretty forgiving when there is this kind of unusual lastminute development like the Supreme Court makes up something out of whole cloth. Because let me re-emphasize, Brian, you and I have talked about it and our legal breakdown viewers have heard us discussing this. What the Supreme Court did was unconstitutional. That puts us in a bit of a quandry. What do you do when the highest court in the land?

[00:05:13]There is no court we can appeal to if the Supreme Court is wrong. The Supreme Court did something contrary to the express language of the Constitution.

[00:05:22]So, you know, I I think we have to keep emphasizing that point because there has to be a fix. Action has to be taken.

[00:05:29]Whether it's congressional impeachment inquiries, whether it is a special counsel appointed to investigate the potential crimes of Supreme Court justices, as senators White House and Widen have requested Merrick Garland do, we cannot let this lie because if you let the Supreme Court act unconstitutionally, well, then who's to say, you know, what privacy rights, what constitutional rights they will revoke next? Okay. So, now that Alvin Bragg has filed this motion, when does Judge Michon actually make his ruling? When is he going to deter determine whether or not he accepts Alvin Bragg's recommendation that the Supreme Court's immunity to decision doesn't apply here? So, we can have some some clarity, some closure on this issue.

[00:06:09]>> So, I I heard a piece of reporting that he has indicated he'll resolve this, I think, on September 6th. It will be a couple of weeks in advance of the scheduled sentencing date of September 18th. That's a little bit of a tell there. It sounds like the judge wants to resolve it so he can keep the case on track to go to sentencing about 12 days after he resolves this. So stay tuned.

[00:06:30]We should have an answer in the coming weeks.

[00:06:32]>> Okay. Now, I have to ask because you and I have done so many episodes focused almost exclusively on Donald Trump's use of his dilatory tactics to get the delay that he wants. Uh what about the possibility that Donald Trump is going to appeal this decision if and when it's handed down by Judge Mawn? That uh that he will be sentenced because the Supreme Court's immunity decision doesn't apply.

[00:06:50]Is he going to be able to appeal this?

[00:06:52]>> Yeah, I I mean, you can always file an appeal, but the the follow-up question is, will it be a successful appeal?

[00:06:59]Brian, I have no doubt of two things.

[00:07:01]Judge Mawn will reject Donald Trump's efforts to get this case tossed out because everything he did, as you pointed out, was either while he was a candidate, you don't have presidential immunity while you're a candidate. And after he was sworn in um as president, he did do some things. He kept writing reimbursement checks out of the Oval Office, but that doesn't convert those acts into presidential acts. It is still private conduct to cover up his crimes.

[00:07:28]Of course, he will file an appeal once Judge Mawn refuses to toss his case. The question becomes, will the appeals court in New York accept review of the case?

[00:07:40]They shouldn't in my opinion because ordinarily um this would not be the kind of issue that can be appealed prior to you being sentenced. The vast majority of your appeals rights come into existence the moment you're sentenced.

[00:07:55]Now the trial court no longer has jurisdiction over the case, but the appellet court does. So, I am hopeful, maybe even optimistic, guardedly optimistic, that the New York Court of Appeals will not step in and um take review of Judge Madon's decision not to throw out the case, but instead to go to sentencing. And then, of course, we already know Donald Trump will seek an extraordinary writ of review in the United States Supreme Court. I remain again cautiously optimistic that none of that will work in the short term and that we will see Donald Trump not only the convicted felon come September 18th, but the convicted and sentenced felon.

[00:08:33]>> Okay. Well, obviously a lot to stay on top of here