President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in state court continues Monday, after a New York judge rejected an effort by Trump to dismiss the case based on a landmark Supreme Court ruling.
Judge Juan Merchan found that a Judgment of the Supreme Court of July granting Trump presidential immunity for official acts did not prevent a jury from finding him guilty after a criminal trial this spring.
Merchan wrote that the evidence shown at the trial corresponded “entirely to unofficial conduct.”
“If error occurred with respect to the introduction of the challenged evidence, that error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt,” Merchan wrote.
Merchant had been scheduled to be pronounced on November 12 on whether presidential immunity should have prevented jurors from seeing certain evidence in Trump’s trial this spring, but postponed his decision. Merchan said at the time that he wanted to hear from prosecutors about how to proceed with the case, which entered uncharted territory when Trump was re-elected president.
Trump has since filed another motion to dismiss the case, arguing that his upcoming return to the White House required it.
Prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have fought that effort, saying there is no law requiring a state case to be dismissed after a conviction because the defendant was elected president.
Trump is the first person in US history to win the presidency after being convicted of crimes. He was also the first ex-president be tried for crimes.
A the jury unanimously found him guilty of crimes in May. Weeks later, the The Supreme Court ruled that former presidents are immune of processing by official acts. The nation’s highest court said in that decision that evidence related to Trump’s work as president could not be used in the trial.
Trump’s lawyers argued the ruling of the Supreme Court resulted in the annulment of the convictionand the charge dismissed. They argued that his trial included testimony from former White House staffers that should have been barred.
Bragg’s office said in opposing the motion to dismiss that the questioned testimony was “a sliver of the mountain” of evidence in the case.
Merchan wrote in his ruling that Trump’s lawyers did not object during the trial to the testimony he considered improperly admitted.
The jury found it Trump committed 34 felonies by authorizing a plan to conceal repayments a Michael Cohenhis former lawyer and fixer. Cohen paid the adult film star $130,000 Stormy Danielsdays before the 2016 presidential election, in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and vehemently denies Daniels’ story.