POLITICS: Judge Juan Merchan’s vendetta against Donald Trump is madness

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan is abusing his power one last time in a bid to ensure that Donald Trump is technically a convicted felon when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20.

Yes: The term “convicted felon” doesn’t legally apply until you’ve been sentenced, which is also a requirement for nearly all appeals of a conviction — and Merchan’s many errors over the course of the trial are all too likely to result in Trump’s conviction being reversed.

So the judge has been dragging things out so that he can sentence Trump on Friday, barely a week before the inauguration and with insufficient time to win that reversal.

Merchan on Monday refused to postpone sentencing; a higher state judge has declined to overrule him; Trump’s asked the US Supreme Court to intervene and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s weighing in Thursday morning on why SCOTUS shouldn’t.

Meanwhile, Merchan has indicated the sentence will be “unconditional discharge,” meaning no jail time, no probation, no fine — but Trump’s official conviction would remain on record.

Again, that would allow Democrats and other Trump-haters to forever harp on how he’s the first convicted felon to become president, no matter how the case proceeds on appeal.

It’s also a bid to get the prez-elect to not bother appealing, and so avoid a higher-court slapdown of the Manhattan trial judge: Once he’s again the leader of the free world, he’ll have far more important things to do.

Indeed, Trump has bigger fish to fry even now; the nation’s in such a state that he needs to hit the ground running after the inauguration — it’s obscene that he may have to spend time next week filing for an emergency appellate hearing in this case to avoid the “felon” agitprop.

Bragg was playing low politics in bringing these charges in the first place; Merchan has all too outrageously played along.

Fact is, they’ve already handed the incoming Trump Justice Department with ample grounds to investigate them both for unconstitutional abuse of state power to influence the last federal election.

But New York’s higher courts also have a duty to slap down Merchan and his abuses.

Trump Derangement Syndrome has left Merchan a modern Captain Ahab, dooming himself with an obsessive pursuit of his target long past all reason: He’s going to go under, tangled in his own harpoon.