Judge rejects Trump’s bid to dismiss hush money conviction because of Supreme Court immunity ruling
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling regarding presidential immunity has led to a judge rejecting Donald Trump’s request for his conviction on hush-money money to be dismissed. The case’s future is still unclear.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan’s decision eliminated one possible off-ramp before Trump’s return in office next month. However, his lawyers have raised additional arguments for dismissal.
The prosecution has said that there should be some accommodations for his upcoming presidential term, but insists the conviction should remain.
In May, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying records of business relating to the payment of $130,000 in hush funds to porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump denies wrongdoing.
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The allegations involve a scheme designed to conceal a payment of hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the final days before Trump’s presidential campaign, to quiet her claims about having sex with him years ago. He denies this.
The Supreme Court decided a month after the ruling that ex-presidents cannot be prosecuted for their official acts, things they did while running the country, and that prosecutors are not allowed to use those actions as evidence in a case that is based on personal or unofficial conduct.
Trump’s attorneys cited the decision to argue that some evidence was improperly obtained by the hush-money jury, including Trump’s financial disclosure form as president, testimony of some White House staffers, and social media posts he made while in office.
The prosecution disagreed, saying that the evidence was “a sliver”, of their case.
Trump assumes office on January 20.
1 Comment
Robert P Van Natta
Posted on December 17, 2024 at 10:48 am
the conviction needs to be dumped, and any court with integrity will. The problem is that evidence that we now
know is inadmissible was received and put before the jury. While the prosecution asgues that it was only a sliver
of a larger case there is no way to know what in the totalityi of evidence was the deciding factor for the each of the 12 jurors. Integrity of the legal system means that trials do NOT include evidence that the jury should not have heard.
The other glaring issue with the case is that it is based on alledged false personal accounting records
even though the records were literally true. Trump’s secretary wrote checks to his attorney, and only put the name of
the who was getting the money without an explanation of what the money was for. That, the prosecutor says is a felony. How many of us have ever written a check and only included in the check book the name of the person
that it was payable to. It that is a felony we all belong in jail.