Hello and welcome to the details of Trump’s bid to overturn hush money conviction on immunity grounds denied and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Donald Trump yesterday lost a bid to overturn his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star in light of the US Supreme Court’s July ruling recognising immunity from prosecution for a president’s official acts. — Reuters pic
NEW YORK, Dec 17 — Donald Trump yesterday lost a bid to overturn his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star in 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 January 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 November 5 election. Merchan has not yet ruled on that motion.
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 US$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 US 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.
‘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, per US 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.
‘Extreme remedy’
Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on November 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. — Reuters
These were the details of the news Trump’s bid to overturn hush money conviction on immunity grounds denied for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
