Former President Trump on Monday asked the hush money judge to vacate his recent conviction following the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 along the ideological line that former presidents enjoy absolute immunity with respect to core constitutional powers and a presumption of immunity for all other acts of official conduct, giving the former presidents broad protection from criminal prosecution.
Following the ruling, Trump’s legal team on Monday filed a letter with New York Judge Juan Marchan asking him to set aside the jury’s recent guilty verdict, arguing that evidence presented by prosecutors at trial is protected by the Supreme Court’s new standards, the people said.
The letter also asks for a stay of Trump’s July 11 sentencing, according to the people.
This event firstThe New York Times.
Trump is arguing that he is immune from prosecution in the three remaining criminal cases that have yet to go to trial — a fight that will play out in lower courts in the coming weeks as justices apply the Supreme Court’s immunity standards.
Just before his hush-money trial was due to begin, Trump launched a last-minute immunity defense as part of an effort to get a delay, arguing that some of the evidence prosecutors hope to show at trial, such as his tweets from while in office, are protected.
Judge Marchan rejected Trump’s immunity defense as premature, allowing the case to go to a jury and ultimately result in the first criminal conviction of a former U.S. president.
“The Supreme Court declines to consider whether the doctrine of presidential immunity bars the introduction of evidence of purported official acts of the president in a criminal proceeding,” Justice Marchan said at the time.
Trump was convicted on 34 counts of making false statements in New York business records with the intent to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election by paying Michael Cohen, then a Trump operative, hush money to a porn star who claimed to have had an affair with Trump, an affair Trump denies.
The Hill has reached out to a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) and a lawyer for Trump for comment.
The Supreme Court clarified on Monday that exculpatory deeds cannot be used as evidence to prosecute unofficial acts.
“The ‘intended effect’ of immunity would be undermined if the official acts for which the President is immune were scrutinized to ensure the President’s conviction, even on charges purportedly based solely on non-official conduct,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
That argument was joined by four of her conservative colleagues, but Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s last appointment to the Supreme Court and who otherwise joined the majority, dissented, writing that she agreed with the three liberal dissenters on that point.
“The Constitution does not require that jurors be concealed the circumstances surrounding the conduct for which the President is held responsible,” Barrett wrote.
