Manhattan prosecutors urge judge to uphold Trump's conviction in "hush money" case
New York prosecutors urged a Manhattan judge to uphold Donald Trump's criminal conviction, saying a recent Supreme Court decision has little bearing on a unanimous jury's decision finding the former president guilty of falsifying records.
In a 69-page memo filed Wednesday and made public Thursday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and prosecutors from his office called Trump's effort "meritless," writing that the Supreme Court's decision "has no bearing on this prosecution and would not support [vacating] the jury's unanimous verdict."
Sentencing in the case, initially scheduled for July 11, was delayed after Trump's lawyers claimed a recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity supported their claim that Trump's conviction should be tossed. They said certain evidence and testimony should have been withheld from the jury, because they were related to protected official acts of the presidency.
The Supreme Court's July 1 ruling barred evidence involving a president's official acts from being used in prosecutions, even if the charges involve unofficial activity. Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsification of business records as part of a scheme to cover up reimbursements for a "hush money" payment to an adult film star shortly before the 2016 election.
Trump's lawyers argued in a filing earlier this month that much of the testimony and evidence introduced at trial that related to Trump's time in office should not have been allowed. That material included testimony by former White House communications director Hope Hicks, former director of Oval Office operations Madeleine Westerhout, Trump's tweets during his presidency and his disclosures to the Office Of Government Ethics.
But prosecutors claimed Wednesday that very little of the evidence related to Trump's official acts, saying any that did were "harmless error" that should not derail a case that included 22 witnesses and reams of documents.
They cited a pretrial ruling related to the case in which a federal judge rejected arguments that the evidence had anything to do with official acts, calling the matter "a personal item of the president."
Trump's lawyers argued in their filing that "presidential immunity errors are never harmless."
"The harmless-error doctrine cannot save the trial result," they wrote. "The Supreme Court's constitutional analysis … forecloses harmless-error analysis."
Justice Juan Merchan has said he will rule on Trump's effort to overturn the conviction on Sept. 6. If Trump's motion fails, sentencing will take place on Sept. 18.
Trump, who is again the Republican nominee for president, could face jail time in the case, but Merchan can also sentence him to a variety of less severe penalties, including probation.