Donald Trump’s attempt to have his hush money conviction thrown out in the wake of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling is bound to fail, according to a legal expert.
State Attorney for Palm Beach County Dave Aronberg was reacting to the request by the former president’s lawyer for Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the falsifying business records trial in New York, to overturn the guilty verdict as some of the presented evidence should not have been allowed.
Trump lawyers cited the recent landmark ruling from the Supreme Court that the former president is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his “official acts” carried out in office, and such acts cannot be used as evidence under absolute immunity.
In court filings, Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove suggested that evidence presented during the Stormy Daniels hush money trial, including Trump’s tweets and testimony from former White House communications director Hope Hicks about her conversations with the former president, should be considered official presidential acts.
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Speaking to MSNBC, Aronberg said “it’s not going to happen” when asked about the likelihood of this appeal working.
“What is an official act in paying off an adult film star to help you get elected president?” Aronberg said. “But the Supreme Court did say that you cannot even go into official acts as far as getting evidence.
“You can’t even go into a court constitutional duty and get testimony and evidence. And Hope Hicks is or was an aide to then-President Trump and her testimony came into the trial. Now they’re saying ‘Aha, you should never have admitted her testimony into the trial. Case dismissed.’ Doesn’t work like that.”
“If anything, it’s harmless error, but also his conversations with Hope Hicks were not crucial to the case.”
With regards to the tweets Trump sent while in office, including one in which Trump admitted reimbursing his former lawyer Michael Cohen after he paid Daniels the $130,000 in hush money, Aronberg said that these tweets were public and therefore allowed.
“The court said you can use public documents against the president,” Aronberg said. “Even if you couldn’t admit the Hope Hicks testimony, I’d say that’d be harmless error, no chance of dismissing this case unless the Supreme Court decides to go their own way again.”
Trump’s legal team has been contacted for comment via email.
Trump was due to be sentenced on July 11 after he was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to money paid to Daniels to keep an alleged affair with Trump a secret ahead of the 2016 election.
The sentencing date was delayed until September 18 as Merchan considers whether the Supreme Court immunity ruling affects the hush money case.
“Because of the implications for the institution of the Presidency, the use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution that tainted DANY’s grand jury proceedings as well as the trial,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
“These transgressions resulted in the type of deeply prejudicial error that strikes at the core of the government’s function and cannot be addressed through harmless-error analysis,” they said.
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