Merchan: “Stand back and stand by”

By BRUCE LOWITT

Donald Trump angrily demanded Friday that Justice Juan Merchan reverse his decision to postpone Trump’s sentencing in his porn star hush money trial from Sept. 18 until Nov. 26, “because without the threat of jail before the presidential election, how am I supposed to run as a martyr?”

“My millions – my hundreds of millions – of faithful followers know I’ve never done anything wrong as president or before or after,” Trump said, “people who were ready to storm vote-counting centers for me because I was going to be sentenced after being unjustly convicted of terrible things. Now what are they going to do?

“What if they’re just not motivated like they would’ve been? What if all the gerrymandering and putting MAGA people in the state offices and stuff isn’t enough? Am I gonna have to tell the Proud Boys to stand by again?”

In his four-page ruling, Merchan wrote: “This is not a decision this court makes lightly, but considering both sides’ freaking filings and appeals and shit have made a mess of my calendar, I’m going to take two and a half months off from this case and go home and watch a lot of football. Court is adjourned. Fight on, Bearcats!”

Trump previously had demanded that his sentencing be delayed until after the election in order to give him more time to challenge his conviction in May on 34 counts of falsifying records to hide a sex scandal.

But after a year of attacking Merchan and his family, after launching countless tactics that delayed the trial for more than a year, even delaying the original July 11 sentencing date, Trump figured the judge “was pissed off at (Manhattan District Attorney) Alvin Bragg” for filings that also hindered the September sentencing date.

“If Judge Merchan, who I think is a terrific guy, suddenly doesn’t like that crooked D.A., maybe that works in my favor. Maybe he’ll figure out a way to avoid another riot at the Capitol.

“I could’ve been given a sentence of four years, which as everyone knows is the same length as a presidential term,” Trump said. “He could’ve sentenced me to four years of house arrest in the White House, so I could do my job without having to visit all those shithole countries that presidents have to go to.”