Trump loses bid to toss hush money conviction on immunity grounds

WASHINGTON – Donald Trump on Dec 16 lost a bid to overturn his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star, in the light of the US Supreme Court’s July ruling recognising 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.

Justice Merchan has not yet ruled on that motion.

In the Dec 16 41-page decision, the judge sided with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which brought the case.

The prosecutors argued that 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 spokesman Steven Cheung called Justice Merchan’s decision “a direct violation of the Supreme Court’s decision on immunity”.

The case stemmed from a US$130,000 (S$175,600) payment that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to

adult film actress 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 US president – former or sitting – had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offence.

Trump pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Mr Bragg, a Democrat, to harm his 2024 campaign.

‘Wholly unofficial conduct’

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, in line with US Department of Justice policy holding that presidents cannot be federally prosecuted.

Another criminal case against Trump over the 2020 election in the 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 recognised 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 Mr 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 in December filed a separate motion urging the judge to dismiss the charges because having them loom over Trump while he was serving as president would impede his ability to govern.

Mr 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 Justice Merchan will rule. REUTERS