Judge sets Trump’s sentencing in hush money case for Jan. 10, but signals no jail time
A judge Friday set U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case for Jan. 10 — a little over a week before he’s due to return to the White House — but indicated he wouldn’t be jailed.
The development nevertheless leaves Trump on course to be the first president to take office convicted of felony.
Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, signalled in a written decision that he’d sentence the former and future president to what’s known as a conditional discharge, in which a case gets dismissed if a defendant avoids rearrest.
Merchan rejected Trump’s push to dismiss the verdict and throw out the case on presidential immunity grounds and because of his impending return to the White House. The judge said he found “no legal impediment to sentencing” Trump and that it was “incumbent” on him to sentence Trump prior to his swearing in on Jan. 20.
“Only by bringing finality to this matter” will the interests of justice be served, Merchan wrote.
The development marks yet another twist in the singular case.
A jury convicted Trump in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 US hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump denies any wrongdoing.
The allegations involved a scheme to hide the payout to Daniels during the final days of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to keep her from publicizing her claim of a sexual encounter with the married then-businessman years earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them.
Judge had indefinitely postponed sentencing
After Trump’s Nov. 5 election, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed the sentencing so the defence and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.
Trump’s lawyers urged Merchan to toss it. They said it would otherwise pose unconstitutional “disruptions” to the incoming president’s ability to run the country.
Prosecutors acknowledged there should be some accommodation for his upcoming presidency, but they insisted the conviction should stand.
They suggested various options, such as freezing the case during his term or guaranteeing him a no-jail sentence. They also proposed closing the case while formally noting both his conviction and his undecided appeal — an idea drawn from what some state courts do when criminal defendants die while appealing their cases.
Trump takes office Jan. 20 as the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.
His conviction left the 78-year-old facing the possibility of punishment ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.
Trump decried verdict as ‘rigged’
Trump, a Republican, has decried the verdict as the “rigged, disgraceful” result of a “witch hunt” pursued by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat.
Before Trump’s November election, his lawyers sought to reverse his conviction for a different reason: a U.S. Supreme Court decision in July that gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution. That request was still pending when the election raised new issues.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump has been found guilty in his New York hush-money trial. CBC’s Anya Zoledziowski breaks down the key evidence and witnesses that led the jury to the historic conviction.
While urging Merchan to nix the conviction, Trump also sought to move the case to federal court, where he could also assert immunity. A federal judge repeatedly said no, but Trump appealed.
The hush money case was the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial.
Since the election, special counsel Jack Smith has ended his two federal cases. One pertained to Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss; the other alleged he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
A separate, state-level election interference case in Georgia is largely on hold.
Published at Fri, 03 Jan 2025 21:23:06 +0000
A soldier who died in an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left a note saying it was a stunt to serve as “wake-up call” for the country’s ills, investigators said Friday.
Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colo., apparently harboured no ill will toward president-elect Donald Trump, Clark County sheriff’s officials said.
Livelsberger wrote in the note that he needed to “cleanse my mind” of the lives lost of people he knew and “the burden of the lives I took.”
“Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues,” FBI special agent in charge Spencer Evans said at a news conference.
The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the hotel.
“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake-up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” Livelsberger wrote in a letter found by authorities who released only excerpts of it.
Investigators have identified Livelsberger as the Tesla driver — who was burned beyond recognition — and the Clark County coroner’s office said his death was a suicide caused by a gunshot wound.
Pentagon officials have declined to say whether Livelsberger may have been suffering from mental health issues but say they have turned over his medical records to police.
The new details came as investigators sought to determine Livelsberger’s motive, including whether he sought to make a political point with the Tesla and the hotel bearing the president-elect’s name.
The soldier who was found dead in an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas appears to have been ‘struggling with PTSD and other issues,’ investigators said Friday. It also appears Matthew Livelsberger held no animosity toward U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, said Spencer Evans, FBI special agent in charge, at a news conference.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has recently become a member of Trump’s inner circle. Neither Trump nor Musk was in Las Vegas early Wednesday, the day of the explosion. Both had attended Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at his South Florida estate.
Musk spent an estimated $250 million US during the presidential campaign to support Trump, who has named Musk, the world’s richest man, to co-lead a new effort to find ways to cut the government’s size and spending.
Investigators suspect Livelsberger may have been planning a more damaging attack but the steel-sided vehicle absorbed much of the force from the crudely built explosive.
Investigators said previously that Livelsberger shot himself in the head inside the Tesla Cybertruck packed with fireworks just before it exploded outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day.
“It’s not lost on us that it’s in front of the Trump building, that it’s a Tesla vehicle, but we don’t have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it was because of this particular ideology,” Evans, of the FBI, said Thursday at a news conference.
Asked Friday about whether Livelsberger had been struggling with any mental health issues that may have prompted his suicide, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters that “the department has turned over all medical records to local law enforcement.”
At a news conference Thursday, authorities said a man they believe was a highly decorated Army soldier shot himself in the head before the Tesla Cybertruck he was in burst into flames outside Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel. Investigators have not definitively identified the remains as Matthew Livelsberger, but the IDs and tattoos on the body ‘give a strong indication that it’s him,’ said Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
A law enforcement official said investigators learned through interviews that Livelsberger may have gotten into a fight with his wife about relationship issues shortly before he rented the Tesla on Saturday and bought the guns. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Authorities are still working to determine a motive. Among the charred items found inside the truck were a handgun at Livelsberger’s feet, another firearm, fireworks, a passport, a military ID, credit cards, an iPhone and a smartwatch, McMahill said. Authorities said both guns were purchased legally.
Decorated veteran
Livelsberger served in the Green Berets, highly trained special forces who work to counter terrorism abroad and train partners. He had served in the army since 2006, rising through the ranks with a long career of overseas assignments, deploying twice to Afghanistan and serving in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, the army said. He had recently returned from an overseas assignment in Germany and was on approved leave when he died, according to a U.S. official.
He was awarded a total of five Bronze Stars, including one with a valour device for courage under fire, a combat infantry badge and an army commendation medal with valour.
Authorities searched a townhouse in Livelsberger’s hometown Thursday as part of the investigation. Neighbours said the man who lived there had a wife and a baby.
Cindy Helwig, who lives diagonally across a narrow street separating the homes, said she last saw the man she knew as Matthew about two weeks ago when he asked her if he could borrow a tool he needed to fix an SUV he was working on.
“He was a normal guy,” said Helwig, who said she last saw the wife and baby earlier this week.
The explosion of the truck, packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’s famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people before being shot to death by police. The FBI says they believe Jabbar acted alone and that it is being investigated as a terrorist attack.
Christopher Raia, FBI deputy assistant director, said Thursday that officials have found “no definitive link” between the New Orleans attack and the truck explosion in Las Vegas.
Published at Fri, 03 Jan 2025 22:26:11 +0000
