Judge to Decide Whether Trump's Hush Money Conviction Can Stand

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: US News and World Report/Reuters

Nov. 10, 2024, at 7:16 a.m.


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York judge is set to decide this week whether President-elect Donald Trump's criminal conviction on charges involving hush money paid to a porn star should be overturned in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's July ruling on presidential immunity.

Justice Juan Merchan has said he will make his decision by Tuesday. It is the first of two pivotal choices that the judge must make after Trump's Nov. 5 election victory. Merchan also must decide whether to go ahead with sentencing Trump on Nov. 26 as currently scheduled. Legal experts have said sentencing now is unlikely to happen ahead of Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration.

A favorable ruling by Merchan for Trump on the immunity question or a sentencing delay would pave the way for him to return to the White House largely unencumbered by any of the four criminal cases that once appeared to threaten his ambitions to win back the White House.

Officials at the U.S. Justice Department are assessing how to wind down the two federal criminal cases brought against Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith due to its longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president. A separate case in Georgia involving state criminal charges concerning Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss remains in limbo.

Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2024-11-10/judge-to-decide-whether-trumps-hush-money-conviction-can-stand

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None of that had anything to do with "official duties".

From the article -

Prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, have argued that the Supreme Court's ruling has no bearing on the case, which they said concerned "wholly unofficial conduct." The Supreme Court in its ruling found no immunity for a president's unofficial acts.