Judge weighs immunity in hush money case

NEW YORK — In a blow to most defendants, Donald Trump turned his criminal conviction into a rallying cry. His supporters posted “I vote for the felon” on T-shirts, hats and lawn signs.

“The real verdict will be pronounced by the people on November 5,” Trump proclaimed after his conviction last spring in New York on 34 charges of falsifying company records.

Now, just a week after Trump’s resounding election victory, a Manhattan judge is poised to decide whether to uphold or throw out the hush-money verdict over a July U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution .

Judge Juan M. Merchan has said he will issue a written opinion Tuesday on Trump’s request to dismiss his conviction and order a new trial or dismiss the charges entirely.

Merchan was expected to rule in September, but he delayed “to avoid any appearance” that he was trying to influence the election. His decision could be put on hold again if Trump takes other steps to delay or end the case.

If the judge upholds the verdict, the case is on track for sentencing on November 26 – although that could shift or disappear depending on appeals or other legal maneuvers.

Trump’s lawyers have been fighting for months to overturn his conviction, including efforts to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to derail his 2016 campaign.

Trump denies her claim, insisting he did nothing wrong and has labeled the verdict a “rigged, disgraceful” result of a politically motivated “witch hunt” designed to damage his campaign.

The Supreme Court ruling gives former presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts — things they do as part of their job as president — and prohibits prosecutors from using evidence of official acts to prove that purely personal conduct violates the law.

Trump was a private citizen — campaigning for president but not elected or sworn in — when his then-attorney Michael Cohen paid Daniels in October 2016.

But Trump was president when Cohen was repaid, and Cohen testified that they discussed the repayment arrangement in the Oval Office. Those fees, jurors found, were incorrectly recorded in Trump’s administration as legal fees.

Trump’s lawyers allege that the Manhattan district attorney’s office “tainted” the case with evidence — including testimony about Trump’s first term as president — that should not have been allowed.

Prosecutors argue that the Supreme Court’s ruling “provides no basis for overturning the jury’s verdict.” They said Trump’s conviction involved unofficial acts — personal conduct from which he is not immune.

The Supreme Court did not define an official act and left that to lower courts. It also did not clarify how the ruling — which stemmed from one of Trump’s two federal criminal cases — applies to state-level cases such as Trump’s hush-money prosecution.

“There are several murky aspects to the court’s ruling, but one that is particularly relevant to this case is the issue of what counts as an official act,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University. “And I think it’s extremely difficult to argue that this payout to this woman qualifies as an official act, for some pretty obvious reasons.”