Judge rejects Trump’s attempt to overturn hush money conviction

A judge on Monday rejected US President-elect Donald Trump’s request to overturn his conviction for paying bribery due to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity. But the overall future of the case remains unclear.

The decision by Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan eliminates one possible way out of the case before Trump returns to office next month. But his lawyers raised other arguments for dismissal.

Prosecutors said there should be some accommodations for his next presidency, but they insist the conviction should stand.

Jury Trump was convicted in May Among the 34 counts of falsifying business records relate to a $130,000 bribe payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump denies any wrongdoing.

The allegations included a scheme to hide payments to Daniels during the final days of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to prevent her from going public — and voters from hearing — her claim of having a sexual encounter with the married businessman years earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them.

Supreme Court ruling after ruling

Weeks after the ruling was issued… The Supreme Court ruled That former presidents cannot be tried for official acts — things they did while running the country — and that prosecutors cannot cite those acts to support a case centered around purely personal, unofficial conduct.

Trump’s lawyers then cited the Supreme Court opinion to argue that the hush money jury was given some incorrect evidence, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form, testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made while he was in office.

In Monday’s ruling, Merchan denied the bulk of Trump’s claims that some of prosecutors’ evidence related to official acts and implicated immunity protections.

The judge said that even if he found that some of the evidence related to official conduct, he would still find that the plaintiffs’ decision to use “these acts as evidence of asserted personal acts of falsifying business records poses no risk of intrusion upon the authority and function of the executive branch.”

Even if prosecutors wrongly presented evidence that could be challenged under the immunity claim, “such error was not harmful in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt,” Merchan continued.

Prosecutors said the evidence in question is only a “small piece” of their case.

Trump’s communications director, Stephen Cheung, on Monday called Merchan’s decision “a direct violation of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling and other longstanding case law.”

“This lawless case should never have been brought, and the Constitution demands that it be dismissed immediately,” Cheung said in a statement.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment.

Trump is 78 years old He won the US presidential election on November 5He takes office on January 20.