Utahns divided on Trump legal battles as he prepares for presidency

SALT LAKE CITY — With President-elect Donald Trump just over a month away from returning to the White House for a second term, what becomes of his legal battles remains controversial.

A recent Deseret New/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll, conducted by HarrisX, asked registered Utah voters: "Now that Donald Trump has been elected president, what do you think should happen with the pending civil and criminal legal actions?"

• 35% said all cases should be permanently dropped.
• 18% said cases should remain on hold until after his presidential term.
• 10% said civil cases should be dropped, but criminal cases should continue.
• 37% said all cases should continue.

Even though Trump won Utah with flying red colors, increasing his winning margin in the state by more than 1% and his vote shares by more than 5% compared to four years earlier, some Utah counties — including Davis and Utah County — saw a slight shift in blue votes than in previous elections.

Nearly half (49%) of registered Republicans surveyed in the poll believe Trump's cases should be dismissed completely, whereas 2% of registered Democrats shared the same opinion. The poll was Nov. 26 to Dec. 5 of 826 registered Utah voters and has a margin of error +/- 3.4 percentage points.

"It's not surprising that there's a big disparity between Republicans and Democrats," Utah Attorney Greg Skordas said. "It's a little bit surprising that such a high number feels that all of the cases should be dismissed, especially in as much as a jury found guilty in one of the cases. I mean, I don't understand the logic about dismissing a case when a person was legally and appropriately convicted?"

The judge in the criminal case against Trump, in which a 12-person jury found him guilty on all 34 counts brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, announced on Monday that the case should not be dismissed based on presidential immunity.

Referring to the Supreme Court ruling in July that grants presidents broad immunity for official acts they make while in office, Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan said in his 41-page filing that it does not hold up as an argument in this case.

The "Defendant's argument that these communications fall at least within the outer perimeter of his authority also fails. The testimony was most certainly palpably beyond any actual authority Defendant possessed in his capacity as President," Merchan wrote. "However, even if this Court were to find that the communications do fall within the outer perimeter of his Presidential authority, it would also find that other, non-privileged trial testimony provided ample non-motive related context and support to rebut a presumption of privilege and that Defendant was acting in his personal capacity and not pursuant to his authority as President."

The case that labeled Trump a felon centers around falsified business records labeled as "legal expenses" in 2016 allegedly used to pay off adult film actress Stormy Daniels from going public over a sexual encounter she claims to have had with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006.

"I don't think it's appropriate to set aside a unanimous jury verdict on 34 felony charges. The prosecution did its work. The jury heard the evidence. He had competent lawyers, and they found him guilty. So I think he should live with that," Skordas told the Deseret News. "And to me, as an attorney for 42 years, I don't know what else there is to say about a criminal case, except that he had his day in court and lost."

Now that Trump has won the presidency, his two federal cases are effectively done, "but that doesn't make it right," he added, emphasizing the same goes for the RICO case in Georgia that is currently paused where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the case against Trump and 18 others, was allegedly dishonest about her relationship with a special prosecutor who she hired onto the case.

"There's certainly some benefit for the country in dismissing all of the cases against him simply because of the disruption it's caused. And I understand that, but most of the disruption was created by Trump himself, and ironically, he's likely to benefit from that."

Following Merchan's decision, Trump posted on social media calling the case "completely illegal," calling Merchan "deeply conflicted, corrupt, biased, and incompetent," saying that he has "disrespected the United States Supreme Court and its Historic Decision on Immunity. But even without Immunity, this illegitimate case is nothing but a Rigged Hoax."

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