Judge rejects overturning of Donald Trump’s conviction

Donald Trump lost a round on Monday in his battle to overturn his only criminal conviction, for hidden payments to porn film actress Stormy Daniels, with the New York judge rejecting his appeal on the basis of presidential immunity.

Donald Trump’s lawyers invoked the presumption of criminal immunity recognized on July 1 for the President of the United States by the Supreme Court to request the annulment of the judgment rendered against him on May 30. They argued that part of the evidence and testimony against him should not have been presented at trial because it fell within his “official acts”, under this later judgment.

But Judge Juan Merchan concluded in his decision that the acts in question had no official character and were therefore not covered by presidential immunity. He adds that even if incriminating evidence was wrongly used, it did not weigh “in the face of the overwhelming evidence of guilt” of the accused.

Donald Trump was found guilty in this case of “aggravated accounting falsification to conceal a conspiracy to pervert the 2016 election” but his sentencing was postponed several times.

Following his victory in the November 5 vote, his lawyers presented a new appeal, invoking his status as elected president, incompatible according to them with the verdict. Judge Merchan sought arguments from both parties on this subject earlier this month but has not yet ruled on this appeal.

The prosecution opposes an outright annulment but says it is willing to make “arrangements” so that the criminal proceedings do not “weigh” on the second Trump presidency.

The Manhattan prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, therefore proposed to the judge not to sentence Donald Trump to an “incarceration sentence” or that “the procedure be suspended during the presidential term” of four years, i.e. until January 2029.

The case concerns hidden payments of $130,000, before the 2016 presidential election, to a pornographic film actress, Stormy Daniels, so that she would keep quiet about a sexual encounter ten years earlier. A relationship that Donald Trump has always denied.

Of the four criminal proceedings targeting Donald Trump, this case is the only one in which a trial was held for the candidate in the presidential election which he won, an unprecedented scenario in American history.

Special prosecutor Jack Smith recommended and obtained in late November a halt to federal charges against him for illegal attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and for withholding classified documents after his departure from the White House.

After consultations, the Department of Justice concluded that its policy since the Watergate scandal in 1973, consisting of not prosecuting a sitting president, “applies to this unprecedented situation,” explained Jack Smith. This conclusion “does not depend on the seriousness of the crimes targeted, the strength of the prosecution’s case or the merits of the prosecution,” he clarified.

As for Georgia (southeast), where Donald Trump is charged with 14 other people with similar acts of electoral interference in 2020, his lawyer asked the courts of this state to declare themselves incompetent to judge the one who “is now the president-elect and soon to be the 47th president of the United States.