Trump Lawyers Push To Have Hush Money Conviction Overturned Following Supreme Court’s Immunity Ruling

In filings made public, coinciding with the scheduled sentencing of former President Donald Trump in his Manhattan hush-money case, Trump’s lawyers requested the judge overseeing the case to overturn his conviction and dismiss it, citing the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.

Judge Juan Merchan, overseeing Trump’s New York case, has already postponed his sentencing from July 11. to Sept. 18 in light of the immunity ruling, which granted Trump broad immunity from prosecution for his official actions as president.

However, Trump’s lawyers now contend that this Supreme Court decision nullifies his guilty verdict on charges of falsifying records related to a potential sex scandal during his 2016 presidential campaign.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 partisan ruling has sparked criticism from legal scholars and dealt a setback to Trump’s separate criminal case in Washington, where he faces allegations of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

In Thursday’s documents, Trump’s lawyers argued that the Manhattan district attorney’s office relied on evidence from his time in the White House to build their case. They pointed out that the recent ruling emphasized that prosecutors cannot use evidence of official acts to substantiate allegations of private misconduct.

The defense motion referenced testimony from two aides who worked for the then-president, including Hope Hicks, his communications director. Hicks testified about discussing how to respond with Trump in the White House after the hush money story surfaced.

The filing also emphasized Madeleine Westerhout‘s testimony, a former director of Oval Office operations, who told the jury about scheduling a February 2017 meeting with Trump and Michael Cohen, during which Cohen reportedly discussed reimbursement for the hush money payment.

According to the defense, the testimony from the two aides included “observations of President Trump exercising presidential authority,” and engaging in “official communications.”

Trump’s lawyers also contended that Manhattan prosecutors should not have referenced tweets and other public statements made by Trump during his presidency.

“Because of the implications of the institution of the presidency, the use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the Federal Constitution that tainted. These transgressions resulted in the type of deeply prejudicial error that sticks at the core of the government’s function,” wrote Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove.

The defense motion also criticized the district attorney’s office under Alvin Bragg, arguing that prosecutors rushed to try Trump in April and May while the Supreme Court was still deliberating on his immunity claims.

“Rather than wait for the Supreme Court’s guidance, the prosecutors scoffed with hubris at President Trump’s immunity motions and insisted on rushing the trial,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

Blanche and Bove further claimed that Trump did not receive a fair trial, stating, “No president of the United States has ever been treated as unfairly and unlawfully as District Attorney Bragg has acted towards President Trump.”

“Your Honor now has the authority to address these injustices, and the court is duty-bound to do so in light of the Supreme Court’s decision,” they concluded.

Bragg’s prosecutors are expected to argue that Hicks and Westerhout were testifying about personal conversations rather than official acts by the president.

A federal judge had previously supported this distinction before Trump’s trial began, rejecting Trump’s pretrial motion to disclude evidence related to his official acts as president.

In rebuttal to the argument to exclude evidence of Trump’s tweets and public statements, prosecutors are likely to cite Chief Justice Robert‘s footnote in the Supreme Court opinion, stating that a “prosecutor may point to the public record” to support their argument.