Trump's efforts to toss conviction is denied
By: Luc Cohen
and jack Queen
Reuters
NEW YORK - Donald Trump on Monday [12/16/2024] lost a bid to overturn his criminal conviction stemming form hush money paid to a pron star ion light of the U.S. Supreme Court's July [2024] ruling recognizing immunity form prosecution for a president's official acts.
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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 [2025] 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 November 5 [2024] election. Merchan has not yet ruled on that motion.
.... In Monday's [12/16/2024] 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 form 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 over a sexual encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.
..... A Manhattan jury in May [2024] 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.
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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 can not 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 form one of the two federal cases against Trump, decided that presidents are immune form prosecution involving their official acts, and the 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 form 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 November 26, [2024] but Justice Merchan pushed that back indefinitely after his election win.
..... Trump's lawyer earlier this month [12/2024] 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.