Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is fighting back against Donald Trump’s move to throw out his hush-money convictions.
After the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have immunity for “official acts” last month, Trump asked the state of New York to throw out his 34 felony convictions. Bragg’s office replied with a legal filing of its own asking the state to reject Trump’s bid, arguing that even if official acts were excluded, they were “only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof” the jury saw before voting to convict Trump.
The filing, made public Thursday, stated that the evidence Trump’s lawyers are challenging isn’t protected, citing a footnote in the Supreme Court’s ruling that includes a “public records exception” for introducing evidence from protected official acts. Even if protected evidence was introduced, “any error was harmless in light of other overwhelming evidence of defendant’s guilt.”
“The Supreme Court has long recognized that a President can act in an unofficial, personal capacity,” the filing, written by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo, states. “Nothing in the Court’s recent immunity decision changes that basic fact.… This case involved evidence of defendant’s personal conduct, not his official acts.”
In May, Trump was convicted of falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in the first degree by using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug before the 2016 presidential election. He has long alleged that the case, along with his other criminal and civil cases, is part of a plot against him by those opposed to his presidency.
Judge Juan Merchan is expected to rule on Trump’s immunity in early September. If he rules in favor of the district attorney’s office, sentencing for Trump’s conviction will take place on September 18, possibly leading to the first prison sentence ever for a former president.
