Judge Juan Merchan:conviction related to Trump payment to Stormy Daniels should not be dismissed.

[SteveG]

Sorry, Daily Mail scores first. As it is reported by less wonky outlets, I will post.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...unity.html

Judge Juan Merchan wrote Monday that the conviction related to his payment to porn star Stormy Daniels should not be dismissed.

It comes as Trump seeks to throw out the case after the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision this summer.

But the judge ruled the evidence presented in the case earlier this year was related 'entirely to unofficial conduct' and therefore were not official actions as president.

'This Court concludes that if error occurred regarding the introduction of the challenged evidence, such error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt,' Merchan wrote.

'Even if this Court did find that the disputed evidence constitutes official acts under the auspices of the Trump decision, which it does not, Defendant's motion is still denied as introduction of the disputed evidence constitutes harmless error and no mode of proceedings error has taken place.'

Prosecutors asked a New York judge last week to spare Trump prison time for his hush-money conviction in their new filing. It is an effort to prevent the case from being thrown out altogether.

Merchan did not rule Monday on that motion.

Instead, his 41-page decision focused on the question of presidential immunity.

[SteveG]

Reuters version:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-deni...024-12-17/
NEW YORK, Dec 16 (Reuters) - A judge on Monday ruled that Donald Trump's conviction for falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal should stand, rejecting the U.S. president-elect's argument that a recent Supreme Court ruling nullified the verdict, a court filing showed.

Trump's lawyers argued that having the case hang over him during his presidency would impede his ability to govern. He was initially scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26, but Justice Juan Merchan pushed that back indefinitely after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.

In a 41-page decision, Justice Juan Merchan said Trump's "decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch."

Trump's lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, which brought the case, said there were measures short of the "extreme remedy" of overturning the jury's verdict that could assuage Trump's concerns about being distracted by a criminal case while serving as president.

The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment that 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 Trump, who denies it.

A Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment. It was the first time a U.S. president - former or sitting - had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offense.

Trump pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to harm his 2024 campaign.

[SteveG]

Associated Press:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-hush-mo...b5b2546260

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge Monday refused to throw out President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money conviction because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity. But the overall future of the historic case remains unclear.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan’s decision blocks one potential off-ramp from the case ahead of the former and future president’s return to office next month. His lawyers have raised other arguments for dismissal, however. It’s unclear when — or whether — a sentencing date might be set.

Prosecutors have said there should be some accommodation for his upcoming presidency, but they insist the conviction should stand.

A jury convicted Trump in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump denies wrongdoing.

The allegations involved a scheme to hide the payout to Daniels during the final days of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to keep her from publicizing — and keep voters from hearing — her claim of a sexual encounter with the married then-businessman years earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them.

A month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts — things they did in the course of running the country — and that prosecutors can’t cite those actions to bolster a case centered on purely personal, unofficial conduct.

Trump’s lawyers then cited the Supreme Court opinion to argue that the hush money jury got some improper evidence, such as Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form, testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made while he was in office.

In Monday’s ruling, Merchan denied the bulk of Trump’s claims that some of prosecutors’ evidence related to official acts and implicated immunity protections.

The judge said that even if he found that some evidence related to official conduct, he’d still conclude that prosecutors’ decision to use “these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”

Even if prosecutors had erroneously introduced evidence that could be challenged under an immunity claim, Merchan continued, “such error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt.”

Prosecutors had said the evidence in question was only “a sliver” of their case.

Trump communications director Steven Cheung on Monday called Merchan’s decision a “direct violation of the Supreme Court’s decision on immunity, and other longstanding jurisprudence.”

“This lawless case should have never been brought, and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung said in a statement.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment.

Merchan’s decision noted that part of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling declared that “not everything the president does is official.” Trump’s social media posts, for example, were personal, Merchan wrote.

He also pointed to a prior federal court ruling that concluded that the hush money payment and subsequent reimbursements pertained to Trump’s private life, not official duties.

Trump, a Republican, takes office Jan. 20. He’s the first former president to be convicted of a felony and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.

Over the last six months, his lawyers have made numerous efforts to get the conviction and the overall case dismissed. After Trump won last month’s election, Merchan indefinitely postponed his sentencing — which had been scheduled for late November — so defense lawyers and prosecutors could suggest next steps.

Trump’s defense argued that anything other than immediate dismissal would undermine the transfer of power and cause unconstitutional “disruptions” to the presidency.

Meanwhile, prosecutors proposed several ways to preserve the historic conviction. Among the suggestions: freezing the case until Trump leaves office in 2029; agreeing that any future sentence won’t include jail time; or closing the case by noting he was convicted but that he wasn’t sentenced and his appeal wasn’t resolved because he took office.

The last idea is drawn from what some states do when a defendant dies after conviction but before sentencing.

Trump’s lawyers branded the concept “absurd” and took issue with the other suggestions, too.

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Trump denies wrongdoing in all.

[vision63]

Forget it Steve G. It's Imitation Crab Meat.

[special]

in practical terms, what does this mean? will Trump serve a single day of community service? or instead get 15M from another TV Network?

[Lux Interior]

That judge will be on the plane to Gitmo with Jean Caroll on DAY ONE!

[Ombligo]

Pam Bondi has her first DOJ target

[SteveG]

courtesy of the New York Post

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday slammed the New York judge who oversaw his “hush money” trial as “biased” and a “radical partisan” for refusing to toss out the case.

Trump, 78, took aim at Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan over his Monday decision to uphold the Republican’s conviction despite the US Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling.

“BREAKING: In a completely illegal, psychotic order, the deeply conflicted, corrupt, biased, and incompetent Acting Justice Juan Merchan has completely disrespected the United States Supreme Court, and its Historic Decision on Immunity,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in his first statement about the ruling.

[PeterB]

Steve G. wrote: “BREAKING: In a completely illegal, psychotic order, the deeply conflicted, corrupt, biased, and incompetent Acting Justice Juan Merchan has completely disrespected the United States Supreme Court, and its Historic Decision on Immunity,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in his first statement about the ruling.

Wow. A true demonstration of "every accusation is a confession". He really does sound psychotic.

[Ca Bob]

Trump will take office as a felon and remain that way. The judge can set sentencing for the day after Trump leaves office, or he could offer to dismiss the charges if Trump resigns from the presidency by some date.