Trump's Legal Team Seeks to Overturn Conviction Amid Supreme Court Immunity Ruling

Donald Trump's lawyers are planning to request the overturning of his May conviction relating to hush money paid to a porn star, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. The motion for filing this request will be made public soon, before the scheduled sentencing on July 11.

Donald Trump's lawyers plan to ask that his May conviction on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star be set aside due to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling this week on presidential immunity, the New York Times reported. The Times, citing a person with knowledge of the matter, said a letter seeking permission to file the motion would be made public on Tuesday at the earliest and before sentencing scheduled for July 11 in New York state court in Manhattan. Trump faces an uphill battle getting the conviction tossed.

A June 13 deadline for Trump to file post-trial motions has passed, and Justice Juan Merchan may conclude that an appeal is the appropriate way for him to address the issue. In addition, much of the conduct at issue in the case predated Trump's time in office, and a federal judge has already ruled that the hush money payment was not part of his official duties. In a landmark ruling on Monday, a 6-3 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court justices wrote that Trump could not be prosecuted for any actions that were within his constitutional powers as president, but could be prosecuted for unofficial acts. That decision all but ensured that Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, would not go to trial before the Nov. 5 election on separate federal criminal charges involving his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty to those charges. In the planned court filing in the New York case, Trump's lawyers said that ruling meant the jury verdict finding him guilty of covering up his former lawyer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels should not stand, the Times reported, and asks to postpone next week's sentencing.

Trump's lawyers did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. Trump pleaded not guilty and has vowed to appeal his May 30 conviction — the first-ever criminal trial of a U.S. president, past or present — after sentencing. Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office argued Trump directed the October 2016 payment to keep Daniels quiet about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter until after the November 2016 presidential election when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump denies having had sex with Daniels.

'A PURELY PERSONAL ITEM' Trump's lawyers are likely to point to some evidence used in the case that dated from Trump's time in the White House, the Times said.

In March, Trump's lawyers sought to delay the trial until the Supreme Court issued its immunity decision. They pointed to prosecutors' plans to show jurors social media posts by Trump in 2018 constituting an alleged "pressure campaign" to ensure Cohen did not cooperate with a federal investigation into the payment to Daniels. Trump's lawyers said the social media posts were "official communications" and thus immune from state prosecution. Merchan denied that request, finding Trump had made it too late. The trial began on April 15, and prosecutors presented the posts to jurors as evidence. Last year, Trump made a similar argument as part of an unsuccessful push to move the hush money case from state court to federal court. In denying Trump's request in July 2023, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote that the payment to Daniels "was a purely personal item." "Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President's official acts," Hellerstein wrote.

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