NEW YORK—In a long-awaited ruling, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan ruled that President-elect Donald Trump cannot claim presidential immunity in the so-called "hush money" and election interference case brought against him by prosecutors for the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Back in May 2024, prosecutors were able to convince a jury that Trump was guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a conspiracy to silence AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels from speaking out about an affair the two had during a golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006.
The judge affirmed the felony convictions against Trump in his ruling on claims of presidential immunity.
For much of the trial and in the months since the guilty verdict, Trump's attorneys have argued that the president-elect is immunized from criminal wrongdoing. They cited a controversial ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court over the summer that significantly expanded presidential immunity to all "official acts."
Trump's defense interpreted this ruling as covering former administration staffers who testified during the trial, like former White House communications director Hope Hicks. However, Merchan found that even that argument fails to meet the burden to prove that Trump was immunized from illegal activity in his unofficial life.
"Even if this Court were to deem all of the contested evidence, both preserved and unpreserved, as official conduct falling within the outer perimeter of Defendant’s Presidential authority, it would still find that the People’s use of these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch, a conclusion amply supported by non-motive-related evidence," Justice Merchan wrote.
Merchan added that "the evidence related to the preserved claims relate entirely to unofficial conduct and thus, receive no immunity protections."
Trump nor his attorneys, in this case, have yet commented on Merchan's ruling.
AVN has covered the New York case against Trump extensively.
