Judge Juan Merchan, who is leading the case against the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, for alleged bribery of former porn film actress Stephanie Clifford, known as ‘Stormy Daniels’, has ruled this Monday that the former president does not have immunity president in the case, after his legal team attempted to shelve it based on a landmark Supreme Court ruling.
Trump’s defense maintained that prosecutors presented evidence during his trial that was protected by the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity, but Merchan has assured that “the evidence related to the preserved claims relates entirely to unofficial conduct and, therefore, does not receive immunity protection”.
Thus, he has clarified that, according to the Supreme Court ruling, Trump should receive broad immunity for his official acts during his term, an extreme that does not mean that the conviction should be dismissed, since the evidence presented is not related to his conduct as president.
“This court concludes that, if there was an error in the introduction of the challenged evidence, that error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt. Even if this court determined that the challenged evidence constitutes official acts (…), If this is not the case, the defendant’s request will continue to be denied, since the challenged evidence constitutes a harmless error and no error has occurred in the procedural mode,” he stated in the ruling, which is more than 40 pages long.
In his ruling, the judge reviewed testimony that Trump’s lawyers said should not have been heard at trial because of immunity, including that of former adviser and communications chief Hope Hicks and former personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout. as well as those of his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
“(It is) logical and reasonable to conclude that if the act of falsifying records to conceal payments so that the public would not find out is decidedly unofficial, then communications to promote that same concealment should also be unofficial,” he said. written Merchan.
Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, who has been elected White House Communications Director for the next Administration, has considered that Merchan’s decision “is a direct violation of the Supreme Court’s decision on immunity and other jurisprudence,” as reported by the American television network CNN.
Trump was convicted in April on a total of 34 charges, when he was not even confirmed as the official candidate of the Republican Party for the White House. The judge, who postponed ‘sine die’ the hearing in which it will be known whether he is finally sentenced to prison, held him responsible for falsifying documents to hide a payment of $130,000 to Daniels, whom he paid so that she would not talk about a alleged extramarital relationship.
The Supreme Court ruled that former presidents have immunity from prosecution for official acts, noting that evidence related to Trump’s work as president could not be used in the trial. Thus, the magnate’s defense argued that the ruling by the country’s highest court meant that the conviction should be annulled and the accusation dismissed, arguing that the trial included testimonies from former White House staff.
