NEW YORK — Donald J. Trump on Monday lost a bid to overturn his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star in light of the US Supreme Court’s July ruling recognizing immunity from prosecution for a president’s official acts.
Justice Juan Merchan’s denial of Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss the New York state case forecloses one avenue for the Republican president-elect to enter the White House on Jan. 20 for his second four-year term without the stain of a criminal conviction.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers are separately trying to have the verdict overturned on separate grounds in the wake of his defeat of Democratic Vice-President Kamala D. Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
Mr. Merchan has not yet ruled on that motion. In Monday’s 41-page decision, Mr. Merchan sided with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which brought the case.
The prosecutors argued their case dealt with Mr. Trump’s personal conduct, not his official acts as president.
The judge said Mr. Trump’s prosecution for “decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch.”
In a statement, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called Mr. Merchan’s decision “a direct violation of the Supreme Court’s decision on immunity.”
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment that Mr. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels.
The payment was for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Mr. Trump, who denies it.
A Manhattan jury in May found Mr. Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment. It was the first time a US president — former or sitting — had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offense. — Reuters
