“I’m disappointed in my legal talent, I’ll be honest with you,” former President Donald Trump, told reporters gathered in the lobby of Trump Tower on Friday afternoon. A phalanx of those very lawyers stood awkwardly behind him as he reminded the assembled journalists about his many legal troubles. But that was before the New York judge who oversaw the criminal trial that resulted in 34 felony convictions for Trump announced that sentencing won’t happen before Nov. 26.
With that decision from Judge Juan Merchan, it’s hard to deny that Trump’s lawyers have pulled off a massive feat. The strategy they have pursued over the course of the last year, one that has played out in four cases and spanned across the country, has been successful. There will be no criminal accountability for Trump before Election Day.
Things played out in Trump’s favor in ways that would have been hard to imagine as the indictments rolled in. Even with him being convicted of those 34 counts of falsifying business records in May, this year has still gone better than expected for him. In December, it looked like Trump would spend this year stuck in courtrooms instead of on the campaign trail. But while the 78-year-old nominee isn’t hustling between rallies like he used to, it’s not because he’s stuck in one criminal trial after another.
Things played out in Trump’s favor in ways that would have been hard to imagine as the indictments rolled in.
At times it feels like that’s despite, not because of, Trump’s orders to his lawyers. Those who stuck by him have followed his lead and made the most maximalist, overtly political arguments possible, whether they had any chance of success or not. The sheer volume of paperwork he’s had lawyers file in motion after motion has cost millions of dollars in legal fees, almost of all of which has been paid by donors to his political campaign. Many of those legal efforts went nowhere, but just enough of the spaghetti stuck to the wall.
One of Trump’s many co-defendants first called attention to a romantic relationship Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had with a special prosecutor, and Trump’s attorneys ran with the ball. Willis had wanted to begin the trial against Trump in August, roughly a year after indicting him for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. But that relationship was the opportunity Trump’s allies seized upon to grind the proceedings to a halt. The appeals court that will decide if Willis should stay on the case won’t hear oral arguments until December.
The idea that there was some heretofore secret absolute immunity from criminal prosecution seemed laughable when Trump’s lawyers were first attempting to delay his federal election interference case. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled it out of hand in December, but Trump took it all the way to the Supreme Court, which took its sweet time. After hearing oral arguments in April, it handed down its ruling that presidents do have absolute immunity for “core constitutional duties” and presumptive immunity for “official acts” on July 1, the last day of this year’s term. Chutkan finally has the case back, but she released a scheduling order Thursday that made clear pre-trial briefings on the new will extend past the election.
And in Florida, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has kept a near constant foot on the brakes in Trump’s federal classified documents trial, once seen as the most open and shut of the cases against him. As Cannon granted even the most absurd motions from Trump’s team full hearings, her calendar became choked, and the case slipped further and further down the calendar. Then, in July, she dismissed the case entirely based on the out-of-left-field premise that Attorney General Merrick Garland improperly appointed special counsel Jack Smith to his role. The Justice Department is appealing that decision, but there won’t be any resolution soon.
There’s only one thing that could potentially bring this string of victories for Trump to an end: his losing on Election Day.
For people clinging to the hope that they’d see Trump sentenced before Election Day, Judge Merchan put the final nail in the coffin Friday when he agreed to a request from Trump’s lawyers to postpone the sentencing scheduled for Sept. 18. He’s due to issue a ruling on Sept. 20 on whether the Supreme Court’s immunity case should affect the jury’s decision to convict, and the delay will allow time for any potential appeal to be filed before Trump’s sentence is handed down. Merchan wrote in his decision that hitting pause is important to “avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching Presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate.”
The decision to pause his sentencing does affect the election, though. There’s only one thing that could potentially bring this string of victories for Trump to an end: his losing on Election Day. Trump’s legal strategy is to return to the White House next year. From the Oval Office, he would be able to order his attorney general to drop the federal charges against him or pardon himself. He’d also have the aegis of the presidency to shield him from any further legal action from Georgia or New York. Four years of justice delayed is riding on whether he defeats Vice President Kamala Harris, and Merchan’s decision to not sentence before the election is hard to see as anything but a boon for him.
Importantly, though, even Trump losing to Harris doesn’t guarantee that he won’t be able to keep running this same playbook. Given what we’ve seen, there’s still a likelihood that if he’s convicted in other trials that he appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court each time. There may not be another lifeline waiting for him at the end — but it would be enough to keep his head above water for as long as possible.
