Donald Trump’s lawyers are likely to ask that his May conviction on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star be set aside due to the US Supreme Court’s ruling this week on presidential immunity, according to the media reports.
A letter seeking permission to file the motion would be made public on Tuesday at the earliest and before sentencing scheduled for July 11 in New York state court in Manhattan. Trump faces an uphill battle getting the conviction tossed.
A June 13 deadline for Trump to file post-trial motions has passed, and Justice Juan Merchan may conclude that an appeal is the appropriate way for him to address the issue.
In addition, much of the conduct at issue in the case predated Trump’s time in office, and a federal judge has already ruled that the hush money payment was not part of his official duties.
In a landmark ruling on Monday, a 6-3 majority of the US Supreme Court justices wrote that Trump could not be prosecuted for any actions that were within his constitutional powers as president, but could be prosecuted for unofficial acts.
That decision all but ensured that Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, would not go to trial before the November 5 election on separate federal criminal charges involving his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to those charges. In the planned court filing in the New York case, Trump’s lawyers said that ruling meant the jury verdict finding him guilty of covering up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels should not stand.
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