- Title: Trump loses bid to toss hush money conviction on immunity grounds
- Date: 17th December 2024
- Summary: WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (FILE - MAY 23, 2018) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** ADULT FILM STAR, STORMY DANIELS, WHOSE REAL NAME IS STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, HOLDING UP KEY TO THE CITY OF WEST HOLLYWOOD TO PRESS NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (FILE - APRIL 16, 2018) (REUTERS) ADULT FILM STAR, STORMY DANIELS, WHOSE REAL NAME IS STEPHANIE CLI
- Embargoed: 31st December 2024 17:15
- Keywords: Judge Juan Merchan Stormy Daniels Trump hush money immunity
- Location: VARIOUS
- City: VARIOUS
- Country: US
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions,North America
- Reuters ID: LVA007780317122024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Donald Trump on Monday (December 16) lost a bid to overturn his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's July ruling recognizing immunity from prosecution for a president's official acts.
Justice Juan Merchan's denial of Trump's motion to dismiss the New York state case forecloses one avenue for the Republican president-elect to enter the White House on Jan. 20 for his second four-year term without the stain of a criminal conviction.
Trump's lawyers are separately trying to have the verdict overturned on separate grounds in the wake of his defeat of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election. Merchan has not yet ruled on that motion.
"It's a massive stand that judge Merchan took," said Francisco Mundaca, a former New York prosecutor and now a criminal law attorney.
"I think everyone expected that they would fall, all courts would fall in line with the decision and say that these acts were immune based on his, President-elect Trump's current position. However, to say that the state claims are not affected by this ruling it gives... there might be some sentence coming," added Mundaca.
On his Truth Social page on Tuesday, Trump criticized Merchan's ruling, calling it a "completely illegal, psychotic order."
"Merchan, who is a radical partisan, wrote an opinion that is knowingly unlawful, goes against our Constitution, and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it," wrote Trump.
In Monday's 41-page decision, Merchan sided with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, which brought the case. The prosecutors argued their case dealt with Trump's personal conduct, not his official acts as president.
The judge said Trump's prosecution for "decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch."
In a statement, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called Merchan's decision "a direct violation of the Supreme Court's decision on immunity."
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment that Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The payment was for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.
A Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment. It was the first time a U.S. president - former or sitting - had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offense.
Trump pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to harm his 2024 campaign.
The hush money case was the only one of four sets of criminal charges brought against Trump in 2023 to reach trial.
Federal cases over his efforts to change the result of the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents upon leaving office have been dismissed, per U.S. Department of Justice policy holding that presidents cannot be federally prosecuted.
Another criminal case against Trump over the 2020 election in Georgia state court is in limbo. He pleaded not guilty in all cases.
The Supreme Court, in a decision arising from one of the two federal cases against Trump, decided that presidents are immune from prosecution involving their official acts, and that juries cannot be presented evidence of official acts in trials over personal conduct. It marked the first time that the court recognized any degree of presidential immunity from prosecution.
Trump's lawyers said the New York jury that convicted him was shown evidence by prosecutors of his social media posts as president and heard testimony from his former aides about conversations that occurred in the White House during his 2017-2021 term.
Prosecutors with Bragg's office countered that the Supreme Court's ruling has no bearing on the case, which they said concerned "wholly unofficial conduct." The Supreme Court in its ruling found no immunity for a president's unofficial acts.
Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26, but Justice Merchan pushed that back indefinitely after his election win.
Trump's lawyers earlier this month filed a separate motion urging Merchan to dismiss the charges because having them loom over Trump while he was serving as president would impede his ability to govern.
Bragg's office said there were measures short of the "extreme remedy" of overturning the jury's verdict that could assuage Trump's concerns.
It is not clear when Merchan will rule.
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