Trumps hush money conviction should stand because porn star payoff not official act DA

Donald Trump’s hush money conviction should stand because his payoff to a porn star isn’t covered by presidential immunity, Manhattan prosecutors argued Thursday. The US Supreme Court’s recent ruling immunizing presidents’ “official acts” has “no bearing” on the case in which jurors found Trump guilty of lying on company records about reimbursing his fixer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payoff made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office wrote.Bonsai Casino The first-ever criminal prosecution of a former president “exclusively” stemmed from “unofficial acts” like Trump, 78, ordering Cohen to pay off Daniels – who testified about having a brief tryst with a married Trump in 2006 – to hide a sex scandal from voters, according to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Trump’s lawyers have argued that Justice Juan Merchan should toss the guilty verdict because the trial was “tainted” by evidence that the jury should have never heard based on the Supreme Court’s ruling. The GOP 2024 presidential nominee told his White House communications director Hope Hicks, for example, that “it was better” that Daniels’ lurid tale of sex with Trump was revealed in 2018 rather than before the 2016 election, Hicks testified. That conversation should be considered “official conduct” that can’t be used against a president in a criminal case, according to Trump’s lawyers. The DA’s office countered Thursday that Hicks’ testimony was “personal” in nature and not an “official” presidential action. But even if Manhattan jurors never heard that conversation and other challenged evidence from Trump’s White House stint, such evidence “constitutes only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof” that jurors used to convict Trump on 34 counts of felony falsifying business records, prosecutors wrote. “Under these circumstances, there is no basis for disturbing the jury’s verdict, and defendant’s motion should be denied,” Bragg’s office added. Prosecutors also urged Merchan to find that the evidence in question relatively “harmless” to the overall case, and to agree with a federal judge’s July 2023 ruling that, “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts.” Merchan delayed Trump’s sentencing date from July 11 to Sept. 18 to hear from both sides on the presidential immunity issue, and said he’ll decide by Sept. 6. whether to scuttle the historic verdict. If the sentencing does happen as planned, Trump faces up to four years in prison, though legal experts told The Post that he’s more likely to get probation or community service. Trump has denied having sex with Daniels, but chose not to testify at the trial. He’s repeatedly claimed that the case brought by Bragg — an elected Democrat in a borough Trump lost in landslides in 2016 and 2020 — is a politically motivated plot to hurt his 2024 campaign. Advertisement