A New York judge will decide Tuesday whether to throw out Donald Trump’s conviction in his criminal hush money case based on the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity earlier this year.
The President-elect faces up to four years in prison after he was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to cover off payments to porn star Stormy Daniels before Trump was elected president in 2016.
The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in July that former president Trump enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution for “official acts” during his presidency. The nation’s top court left it up to lower courts to sort out what constitutes an “official act” by a sitting president.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan had delayed sentencing by more than four months to come after the election.
If the conviction is upheld, Trump, 78, is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26 — less than two months before his inauguration.
Trump’s sweeping election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris will embolden his legal team to make sure that sentencing never happens, legal experts have said.
Prosecutors have argued that the case centers on “entirely personal” conduct with “no relationship whatsoever to any official duty of the presidency,” as the crimes were committed before he took office, ABC 7 reported.
The “evidence that he claims is affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling constitutes only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof that the jury considered in finding him guilty of all 34 felony charges beyond a reasonable doubt,” prosecutors said.
Trump’s defense team has argued that certain evidence presented to the jury, including his conversation with former White House communications director Hope Hicks and his social media posts as president, muddled the jury’s understanding of the case.
If Merchan tosses the conviction, the judge could still order a new trial — which would be delayed for at least four years until Trump leaves office. He could also dismiss the indictment entirely.
Meanwhile, Justice Department officials are likely to drop the pair of cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith while he was out of office related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and hoarding of classified documents.
The DOJ has a longstanding policy of not prosecuting a sitting president and officials there reportedly are aware it would be futile to continue pursuing charges before Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20.
“Many legal scholars, including myself, agree it’s almost certain he will never see the inside of a jail cell,” Quinnipiac University Assistant Professor of Law Wayne Unger told The Post last week.
Former prosecutor Neama Rahmani agreed, saying, “Now that Trump has won, his criminal problems go away.”
The incoming commander-in-chief could simply pardon himself in the two federal cases once he’s in office or direct his new attorney general to fire Smith and order the Justice Department to drop both matters.
