Staff Reports
Donald Trump, former president and conservative lightning rod, is once again making headlines, this time for his shrewd move in New York to get his hush money trial conviction tossed out. The gambit? Trump’s legal eagles are leaning heavy on a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, aiming to swoop in and save the day by getting Judge Juan Merchan to reconsider the whole ordeal.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that presidents have a degree of immunity from criminal prosecution — well, not for everything, but for official acts. Trump’s legal maestros are ready to argue that this chiseled-from-marble principle should apply to his Manhattan mudslinging match. They’re saying that some witness testimonies and social media posts used during the trial fit into that immune category and should never have seen the light of day in court.
How immunity could complicate Trump’s hush money conviction https://t.co/NcAx2btyyX
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) July 4, 2024
Trump’s team is wasting no time. They’ve penned a preliminary love note to Judge Merchan, urging him to toss out evidence that involved his official, immunized acts. Evidently, they believe that tying the hush money drama to Trump’s presidential duties mutes the accusations. They have a deadline of July 10 to show the specifics, while the prosecutors have until July 24 to shout foul.
In the hush money circus, Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout, two ex-White House insiders, were dragged into the spotlight. They testified about Trump’s handling of the Stormy Daniels saga from the Oval Office. According to the prosecution, their testimonies painted Trump as the ringleader of a covert operation to snuff the story and cheat the American public out of a fair 2016 election. Yet, Trump’s attorneys are ready to argue that chitchat with the president falls into the bulletproof category of official acts.
And then there’s Trump’s social media shenanigans. Prosecutors picked out several of Trump’s 2018 posts from his Twitter days, using them as smoking guns. But Trump’s defense team has other plans. They’re geared up to argue that these posts were official presidential communications, immune from prosecution. The Supreme Court’s vagueness on what counts as an official act leaves room for the defense to make a point.
Judge Merchan is now caught in the crossfire as he reviews Trump’s arguments and the prosecutors’ rebuttals. Merchan has juggled his calendar, pushing back the sentencing while deciding whether to trash the conviction. If Merchan gives a thumbs-up, Trump walks away scot-free. If he shoots it down, the circus trudges on with a sentencing date set for September 18.
One thing’s certain: Trump’s legal jousting will keep pundits chewing their nails. Law professor Jonathan Turley wagers that Judge Merchan will likely deny Trump’s bid, yet he believes that even a denial would shed light on the real implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling. After all, separating the wheat from the chaff in legal land is never straightforward.
