NEW YORK — A judge has decided to uphold the hush money conviction against President-elect Donald Trump, denying a request to dismiss the case despite a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding presidential immunity. This decision keeps the legal saga surrounding Trump unresolved as he prepares to take office once again next month. Although the potential dismissal route has been blocked, Trump’s legal team has presented various other arguments to have the case thrown out, leaving some uncertainty regarding any potential sentencing timeline.
Prosecutors have suggested that considerations should be made for Trump’s impending presidency, yet they have firmly maintained that the conviction should remain in place. In May, a jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records linked to a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump, however, continues to assert his innocence.
The focus of the allegations revolves around a plan to conceal the payment to Daniels during the closing moments of Trump’s 2016 campaign, aiming to prevent revelations about an alleged sexual encounter that took place years prior. Trump has categorically denied any sexual relations with Daniels.
Following the jury’s verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that former presidents cannot be criminally charged for actions performed in their official capacities while serving as president. This ruling suggested that such official actions couldn’t support charges linked to personal misconduct. Trump’s attorneys referenced this ruling to contest the jury’s exposure to certain evidence, such as his presidential financial disclosure documents, testimonies from White House personnel, and social media activity during his presidency.
In the ruling delivered on Monday, Judge Juan M. Merchan dismissed most of Trump’s claims concerning the prosecutors’ use of evidence tied to official actions and potential protections under immunity. The judge indicated that even if some evidence was linked to official conduct, its use in cases of personal misconduct like falsifying business records did not infringe upon the Executive Branch’s authority.
Even if there had been any errors with respect to the evidence presented, Merchan pointed out that these would not likely have influenced the outcome given the substantial evidence of guilt. The prosecutors characterized the evidence in question as merely a minor aspect of their overall case.
Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, criticized Merchan’s ruling, labeling it a breach of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity and longstanding legal precedents. He asserted that the charges should never have been pursued and called for an immediate dismissal based on constitutional grounds.
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, which led the prosecution, did not provide a comment on the matter. Merchan’s ruling emphasized a point made by the Supreme Court: not all actions taken by a president are official in nature. For instance, he described Trump’s social media posts as personal. The judge also referred to a previous federal court decision, which indicated that the hush money payment and subsequent reimbursements were related to Trump’s personal affairs rather than his official duties.
As Trump prepares to assume office again on January 20, he’s already made history as the first former president to receive a felony conviction and to be re-elected while facing criminal charges. His legal team has put forth numerous attempts to have the conviction dismissed over the past six months. After Trump’s recent electoral victory, Judge Merchan postponed sentencing, which had been previously set for late November, allowing both sides to discuss possible paths forward.
Trump’s defense maintained that delaying or denying dismissal would disrupt the transfer of power and create unconstitutional issues for the presidency. Conversely, prosecutors proposed several options to preserve the landmark conviction, including pausing the case until Trump’s potential departure from office in 2029, ensuring that any sentence would exclude jail time, or officially closing the case while noting the conviction without a resolution of sentencing due to Trump’s impending assumption of office. Some of these suggestions were likened to practices followed in cases where a defendant dies post-conviction but pre-sentencing.
Trump’s lawyers dismissed such proposals as impractical. He was indicted four times over the past year, with the hush money case being the only one to reach trial. Following the election, special counsel Jack Smith terminated two federal cases related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and improper handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Additionally, a separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, is currently mostly on hold. Trump continues to deny any wrongdoing across all accusations.
