(Miami) Donald Trump’s lawyers asked the federal justice system on Friday to suspend the criminal case against the Republican for withholding classified documents, after a Supreme Court ruling granting the former president broad immunity.
Donald Trump, 78, a candidate in November’s presidential election, has been indicted for negligent handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
He is accused of compromising national security by keeping documents at his private Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, including military plans and information on nuclear weapons, instead of handing them over to the National Archives as required by law.
Donald Trump’s lawyers asked the judge in charge of the case, Aileen Cannon, on Friday to partially suspend the proceedings to allow for consideration of the “implications” of the recent Supreme Court decision on the case.
In an unprecedented decision, the country’s highest court ruled Monday that, from a criminal perspective, a U.S. president “is entitled to at least a presumption of immunity for his official acts.”
The Republican candidate continues to cry political interference and invokes his presidential immunity in the four criminal cases against him.
He was convicted in May in New York of 34 counts of falsifying accounting records intended to hide from voters the payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels at the very end of the 2016 presidential campaign.
PHOTO STEPHANI SPINDEL, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Former US President Donald Trump has been found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying accounting records to hide from voters the payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels at the end of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, his lawyers wrote to the judge asking for the historic verdict, the first ever against a former US president, to be overturned. As a result, the sentencing, which was scheduled for July 11, was delayed until mid-September.
His trial in Florida was also postponed indefinitely by Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to her position by Donald Trump himself and has drawn the ire of some legal experts for her decisions deemed too favorable to the former president.
Donald Trump also faces two other lawsuits, one federal and one in the state of Georgia, for attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, cases complicated by the recent Supreme Court decision and not expected to be decided until after the November election.