- Friday, April 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The legal battle involving former US president Donald Trump is unlikely to get over soon and could continue beyond the 2024 presidential election, a leading Indian-American attorney has said, observing that a presidential pardon cannot be applied in the case either.
On Tuesday (4), Trump, who served as the president between 2017 and 2021, was arraigned in a criminal case in New York. The 76-year-old Republican leader became the first former American president to be indicted, arrested and arraigned on criminal charges.
Trump, who is also running for the 2024 election, pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records in person before state supreme court justice Juan M Merchan.
“It would not be unusual if this case took two years or more to try, which means by next summer of 2024, when the conventions are being held, this case will not have been tried. In fact, it may not even be tried before the election takes place (in November 2024),” Indian-American attorney from New York Ravi Batra told the Press Trust of India after Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan.
He was charged in connection with $130,000 hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the US presidential election in 2016 to cover up an alleged affair.
Batra said there is a strong case against Trump.
“Even if Trump is elected in the 2024 presidential election, it can at most delay his sentencing as a presidential pardon can be applied to a federal crime and not a case in New York State. Being a Democratic bastion, it is very unlikely that a Republican can be elected as a New York state governor in the near future. So, the possibility of him being pardoned by the New York governor is next to impossible,” he said.
“Let’s assume for a minute he could (win the 2024 elections). It would only delay the sentencing. He could not get a pardon. He couldn’t do it for himself, nor could anybody give him a pardon. Because the federal president cannot pardon someone for state crimes,” he said.
“President Biden could pardon him, for example, if special counsel Jack Smith brought charges against him in federal court, and convicted him, then president Biden or a subsequent president could pardon those federal crimes or charged crimes. But only a state governor can pardon state crimes,” the attorney explained.
Now that a case against Trump has been filed in New York, it is very likely that charges might be filed against him in many states and even by the federal prosecutors against him in multiple cases, he further said.
“On a practical level, every time Trump has to be in court, he’s not out politicking. So it does have a consequence because it eats up his calendar. Now, if his lawyers are in court and he’s not, then it doesn’t matter. But if he has to be in court or he has to give depositions, then he’s not able to politic because he’s got to give his proper obedience to the rule of law,” he said.
“Politically, it is a different matter. But he’s got enough on his plate, legal, both criminal and civil,” he added.
(With PTI inputs)
