A judge ruled that Donald Trump‘s conviction for falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal should stand, rejecting the U.S. President-elect’s argument that a recent Supreme Court ruling nullified the verdict. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A judge on Monday rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s bid to have his hush money conviction dismissed because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity. But the case’s overall future remains unclear.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan’s decision eliminates one potential off-ramp from the case ahead of Trump’s return to office next month, but his lawyers have raised other arguments for dismissal.

Prosecutors have said there should be some accommodation for his upcoming presidency, but they insist the conviction should stand.

A jury convicted Trump in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump denies wrongdoing.

The allegations involved a scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during the final days of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to silence her claims that they’d had sex years earlier, which he denies.

A month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts — things they did in the course of running the country — and that prosecutors can’t cite those actions to bolster a case centered on purely personal, unofficial conduct.

In Monday’s ruling, Merchan denied the bulk of Trump’s claims that some of prosecutors’ evidence related to official acts, and so implicated immunity protections.

The judge said that even if he found that some evidence related to official conduct, he’d still find that prosecutors’ decision to use “these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”

Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the hush money jury got some improper evidence, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form, testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made while he was in office.

Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was only “a sliver” of their case.

Trump takes office January 20.

Trump communications director Steven Cheung on Monday called Merchan’s decision a “direct violation of the Supreme Court’s decision on immunity, and other longstanding jurisprudence.”

“This lawless case should have never been brought, and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung said in a statement.

President-elect Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: AP

President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers formally asked a judge Monday (December 2, 2024) to throw out his hush money criminal conviction, arguing continuing the case would present unconstitutional “disruptions to the institution of the Presidency”.

In a filing made public Tuesday (December 3, 2024), Mr. Trump’s lawyers told Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan that dismissal is warranted because of the extraordinary circumstances of his impending return to the White House.

“Wrongly continuing proceedings in this failed lawfare case disrupts President Trump’s transition efforts,” the attorneys continued, before citing the “overwhelming national mandate granted to him by the American people on November 5, 2024.”

Prosecutors will have until Dec. 9 to respond. They have said they will fight any efforts to dismiss the case but have indicated openness to delaying sentencing until after Mr. Trump’s second term ends in 2029.

Following Mr. Trump’s election victory last month, Mr. Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed his sentencing, previously scheduled for late November, to allow the defence and prosecution to weigh in on the future of the case. He also delayed a decision on Mr. Trump’s prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds.

Mr. Trump has been fighting for months to reverse the conviction, which involved efforts to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to disrupt his 2016 campaign. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Mr. Trump takes office Jan. 20. Mr. Merchan hasn’t set a timetable for a decision.

A dismissal would erase Mr. Trump’s historic conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record and possible prison sentence. Mr. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.

Mr. Merchan could also decide to uphold the verdict and proceed to sentencing, delay the case until Mr. Trump leaves office, wait until a federal appeals court rules on Mr. Trump’s parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court or choose some other option.