John Jefferson
A federal judge has once again rejected Donald Trump’s attempts to move his hush money case out of a Manhattan courtroom, a last-ditch effort to overturn his conviction and avoid sentencing after a jury found him guilty on 34 felony counts this spring.
Trump will be sentenced by New York Justice Juan Merchan on September 18.
The former president’s lawyers had argued in court filings that the case and evidence against him should be tossed out under the Supreme Court’s “immunity” ruling, which determined that presidents are absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for their “official” acts in office.
For the second time, District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected those claims. He wrote on Tuesday that “nothing in the Supreme Court’s opinion” changes his opinion that hush money payments through Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen to an adult film star were “private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.”
Trump’s attorneys had previously tried, and failed, to remove the case from New York courts before a trial was underway.
On May 30, a Manhattan jury found the former president guilty on all counts of falsifying business records in connection with a scheme to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election by concealing hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, whose story about having sex with Trump threatened to derail his campaign.
Judge Merchan is also preparing to rule on Trump’s motion in his court on whether the case should be tossed under the “immunity” decision.
Shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump’s lawyers argued that “impermissible” evidence in the hush money trial includes Trump’s conversations with White House aides who testified at the trial, phone records from his time in office, and posts on Twitter, which they claim was “recognized as a formal channel of White House communication in the Trump Administration.”
Judge Merchan is expected to issue a decision on those arguments on September 16.
Trump’s sentencing is scheduled two days later, though Trump has also pushed Judge Merchan to delay that court date until after November’s presidential election.
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