After Donald Trump’s criminal conviction last spring on 34 counts of falsifying business records, many defendants would have been reeling. But for Trump, it became a rallying point. His supporters emblazoned T-shirts, hats, and lawn signs with the slogan, “I’m Voting for the Felon,” turning the legal setback into a badge of defiance.
“The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people,” Trump declared following the conviction in New York, referring to the upcoming election. Now, just a week after securing a decisive victory in the presidential race, Trump faces a new legal challenge. A Manhattan judge is set to rule on whether his hush money conviction will stand or be dismissed due to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in July, which granted sitting presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
The case, which involves payments made to silence allegations of an affair, has become a focal point in the ongoing debate over presidential accountability and legal immunity. Trump’s legal team argues that the Supreme Court’s ruling should shield him from criminal liability, while prosecutors are pressing to uphold the conviction. The judge’s ruling could have significant implications for both Trump’s legal future and the broader discussion on executive privilege.
Judge Juan M. Merchan is expected to issue a written opinion on Tuesday regarding Donald Trump’s request to have his conviction overturned. Trump is asking the judge to either order a new trial or dismiss the indictment entirely.
Merchan had originally planned to rule in September but postponed the decision to avoid the appearance of influencing the election. However, Trump may still take additional legal steps that could delay or further complicate the case, potentially pushing back the judge's ruling once again.
If the conviction is upheld, the case is on track for sentencing on November 26. However, that date could change depending on appeals or other legal maneuvers.
For months, Donald Trump’s legal team has been working to reverse his conviction related to efforts to conceal a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, whose allegations of an affair threatened to derail Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Trump has consistently denied Daniels' claims, insisting that he did nothing wrong and calling the verdict a “rigged, disgraceful” outcome of a politically motivated “witch hunt” aimed at damaging his campaign.
The case centers on whether the payment violated campaign finance laws and whether Trump’s actions should be classified as criminal. In his defense, Trump’s lawyers are now citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that grants former presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts carried out during their time in office. The ruling bars prosecutors from using evidence of official acts to argue that personal conduct violated the law, a key aspect of Trump’s defense in this case.
Donald Trump was still a private citizen — campaigning for president but not yet elected — when his former lawyer Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels in October 2016. However, Trump was in office when Cohen was reimbursed for the payment, and Cohen testified that they discussed the repayment plan in the Oval Office. The jury found that these reimbursements were falsely recorded as legal expenses in Trump’s business records.
Trump’s legal team argues that the Manhattan district attorney’s office improperly "tainted" the case by introducing evidence — including testimony about Trump’s actions during his first term as president — that should not have been permitted. They contend this evidence was irrelevant to the charges and could have unfairly influenced the outcome of the trial.
Prosecutors argue that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity offers “no basis for disturbing the jury’s verdict” in Donald Trump’s hush money case. They contend that Trump’s conviction involved personal, not official, conduct, for which he is not immune from prosecution.
The Supreme Court, which issued its ruling in one of Trump’s federal criminal cases, did not define what constitutes an official act, leaving that determination to lower courts. The ruling also did not clarify whether it applies to state-level cases, such as the hush money prosecution in New York.
“There are several murky aspects of 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 payoff to this woman does qualify as an official act, for a number of fairly obvious reasons.”
Donald Trump is likely to push for further delays in his hush money case, with his legal team aiming to take the battle to higher courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. Syracuse University law professor David Driesen, author of The Specter of Dictatorship: Judicial Enabling of Presidential Power, noted that Trump could attempt to "ask every court in the world to intervene" in a bid to extend the proceedings.
At the same time, Trump’s lawyers are continuing efforts to move the case from state court to federal court, where they could assert presidential immunity. They have appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking to overturn a September ruling that denied the transfer. If successful, the shift could provide a new legal avenue for Trump to challenge the charges.
If Judge Merchan orders a new trial, it seems unlikely that it could take place while Trump is in office.
Trump’s legal team argued in court filings that, in light of the Supreme Court ruling, jurors should not have been allowed to hear certain evidence, including his conversations with former White House communications director Hope Hicks, as well as testimony from another aide about his work practices. They also contended that prosecutors improperly used Trump’s 2018 financial disclosure report, which included a footnote noting that he reimbursed Michael Cohen in 2017 for unspecified expenses from the previous year.
Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, argued that the prosecution attempted to “assign a criminal motive” to some of Trump’s actions while in office in order to “unfairly prejudice” him. For example, they claimed prosecutors pushed the “dubious theory” that some of Trump’s 2018 tweets were part of a “pressure campaign” to prevent Cohen from testifying against him.
“The immunity decision forecloses inquiry into those motives,” Blanche and Bove wrote.
Prosecutors, however, countered that the Supreme Court ruling did not apply to the evidence in question and emphasized that this evidence represented “only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof” the jury had considered.
BD-Pratidin English/Mazdud
