US president-elect Donald Trump was to be sentenced yesterday, despite his efforts to delay the process, although the judge has indicated that Trump would not face prison.
Trump had made an 11th-hour plea for a suspension of the criminal proceedings to the US Supreme Court after a New York State appeals court dismissed his effort to have the hearing delayed and the state’s top court declined to act on the request.
However, the Supreme Court ruled that the sentencing could proceed.
Photo: AFP
Trump in May last year was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records, but it was expected that he would receive an unconditional discharge. The 78-year-old had potentially faced up to four years in prison.
Trump was expected to attend the sentencing virtually.
In the trial, witnesses testified that Trump had fraudulently covered up illicit payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in an effort to stop her disclosing a tryst ahead of the 2016 presidential election, which he ultimately won.
Prosecutors opposed the effort to stave off sentencing, 10 days before Trump is due to be sworn in for a second term, arguing that it was wrong for the apex court to hear the case when the mogul still had avenues of appeal to pursue in New York.
“This court lacks jurisdiction over a state court’s management of an ongoing criminal trial when defendant has not exhausted his state-law remedies,” the prosecution told the Supreme Court on Thursday.
Trump’s counsel had argued that sentencing should be postponed while he appeals his conviction, but New York state Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer rejected that on Tuesday.
Trump’s lawyers said the immunity from prosecution granted to a US president should be extended to a president-elect, but Gesmer also denied those arguments.
His attorneys had sought to have the case dismissed based on the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year, which said that former presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts committed while in office.
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
‘MISGUIDED EDICT’: Two US representatives warned that Somalia’s passport move could result in severe retaliatory consequences and urged it to reverse its decision Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has ordered that a special project be launched to counter China’s “legal warfare” distorting UN Resolution 2758, a foreign affairs official said yesterday. Somalia’s Civil Aviation Authority on Wednesday cited UN Resolution 2758 and Mogadishu’s compliance with the “one China” principle as it banned people from entering or transiting in the African nation using Taiwanese passports or other Taiwanese travel documents. The International Air Transport Association’s system shows that Taiwanese passport holders cannot enter Somalia or transit there. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) protested the move and warned Taiwanese against traveling to Somalia or Somaliland
SECURITY: Grassroots civil servants would only need to disclose their travel, while those who have access to classified information would be subject to stricter regulations The government is considering requiring legislators and elected officials to obtain prior approval before traveling to China to prevent Chinese infiltration, an official familiar with national security said yesterday. President William Lai (賴清德) in March announced 17 measures to counter China’s growing infiltration efforts, including requiring all civil servants to make trips to China more transparent so they can be held publicly accountable. The official said that the government is considering amending the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) to require all civil servants to follow strict regulations before traveling to China.
RSS