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The Manhattan judge who oversaw President-elect Donald Trump's hush-money trial earlier this year is reportedly considering throwing out his felony conviction before the inauguration, CNN's Paula Reid reports.
Trump's defense team previously delayed sentencing prior to his 2024 election victory this week and will now argue that "as president-elect Trump is entitled to the same protections as a sitting president and should be protected from any state prosecutors, any action in a state level proceeding," according to Reid.
"The judge, Judge Juan Merchan, has given himself a deadline of November 12 to weigh in on whether this entire conviction should be tossed after the Supreme Court's immunity ruling this summer. If he does that the sentencing will go away, but the Trump team, again, they're not even just trying to delay this, they are going to try to get this canceled."
Trump, 78, faces up to four years in prison after being convicted of 34 counts of felony falsifying business records in an effort to hide hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election, though former prosecutor Neama Rahmani predicts the president-elect won't be incarcerated.
“Merchan doesn’t have the stomach to imprison a former president or president-elect,” Rahmani said via the New York Post. “Now that Trump has won, his criminal problems go away.”