NEW YORK — Prosecutors are urging a judge to uphold Donald Trump’s historic hush money conviction, arguing in court papers released Thursday that the verdict should stand despite the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a court filing that the high court’s opinion “has no bearing” on the hush money case and does not support vacating the jury’s unanimous verdict or dismissing the case.
Prosecutors said Trump’s lawyers failed to raise the immunity issue in a timely fashion and that, even so, the case involved unofficial acts — many pertaining to events prior to his election — that are not subject to immunity.
Lawyers for the former president and current Republican nominee are trying to get the verdict — and even the indictment — tossed out because of the Supreme Court’s July 1 decision. It gave presidents considerable protection from prosecution.
The ruling came about a month after a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to conceal a deal to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. At the time, she was considering going public with a story of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, who says no such thing happened. He has denied any wrongdoing.
He was a private citizen when his lawyer paid Daniels. But Trump was president when the attorney was reimbursed. Prosecutors say those repayments were misleadingly logged simply as legal expenses in Trump’s company records.
The attorney, Michael Cohen, testified that he and the then-president discussed the repayment arrangement in the Oval Office.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s view on presidential immunity, and that the trial was “tainted” by evidence that shouldn’t have been allowed under the high court’s ruling.
Judge Juan M. Merchan plans to rule on the Trump attorneys’ request Sept. 6. He has set Trump’s sentencing for Sept. 18, “if such is still necessary” after he reaches his conclusions about immunity.
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