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Former President Donald Trump sits in court for the first day of his Manhattan criminal trial on April 15, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump’s felony conviction will stand for now, a New York judge ruled on Monday, Dec. 16.
The Supreme Court’s sweeping presidential immunity ruling in July called Trump’s guilty verdict on 34 felonies into question, as his lawyers argued that some evidence shown to jurors would no longer be permitted because it involved his official actions as president.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, asserted that the evidence in question was only a “sliver of the mountains” of proof in their case and would not have impacted jurors’ ultimate conclusion.
In Monday’s long-awaited ruling, Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan determined that the Supreme Court’s new guidance on presidential immunity does not apply to whether Trump can be held accountable for falsifying business records.
Related: Donald Trump Seeks to Overturn New York Conviction After Supreme Court’s Immunity Ruling
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Former President Donald Trump attends the first day of his Manhattan criminal trial on April 15, 2024
Trump spent six-plus weeks on trial in the spring, as prosecutors painted a portrait of a former reality TV star who unlawfully tilted the 2016 presidential election in his favor by conspiring with powerful friends to suppress information from voters. Jurors were presented with a wealth of hard evidence and exhaustive witness testimony to support the charges.
On May 30, a jury of seven men and five women unanimously sided with the prosecution, finding Trump guilty of falsifying 34 business records to conceal a plot to influence the election.
The conviction made him the first United States president in history to be found guilty of crimes.
Related: Donald Trump Spreads Misinformation About His Jury Selection Process to Cement ‘Witch Hunt’ Narrative
Shannon Stapleton-Pool/Getty
Donald Trump sits for closing arguments of a civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on Jan. 11, 2024
During the trial, prosecutors introduced testimony from a couple of White House aides who worked with Trump. They also showed jurors a 2018 presidential financial disclosure form. That evidence was not controversial at the time, but a Supreme Court ruling one month after the verdict gave Trump’s legal team a basis for arguing that the trial had been corrupted.
On July 1, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump is immune from being charged for “official” presidential acts. The ruling clarified that he can still be prosecuted for “unofficial” actions he took as a private citizen — or anything he did before and after his presidential term — as long as his official White House conduct is excluded from evidence.
Related: Sonia Sotomayor Pens Fearful Dissent in Trump Immunity Case, Saying Decision Makes Him ‘King Above the Law’
The immunity ruling did not automatically overturn Trump’s New York conviction, because the case focused on his actions as a presidential candidate and his personal finances during his first year in office — not on how he wielded the power of the presidency.
The ruling did, however, force Merchan to reassess whether the way that jurors reached their verdict violated the Supreme Court’s new guidelines.
Related: ABC News to Pay $15 Million to Donald Trump’s Presidential Library in Settlement for George Stephanopoulos Libel Lawsuit
Merchan’s conclusion closely echoed the argument that prosecutors made against tossing Trump’s conviction, saying that even if evidence of his official acts as president was introduced at trial, “such error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt.”
Further, Merchan suggested that using evidence related to Trump’s official presidential conduct “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch” in this case, because it centers around “the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records.”
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Though Merchan oversaw the trial, he will not have the final say on whether Trump’s conviction stands. Trump has the option to appeal Merchan’s decision, and if an appellate court does not give him the answer he wants, he can take the matter to the Supreme Court, which has a conservative supermajority.
Trump has another card up his sleeve, as well, in his quest to dismiss the case. Similar to how Merchan was asked to decide whether presidential immunity nullifies Trump’s guilty verdict, the defense has also asked him to toss the conviction on other grounds: that Trump’s recent election as president poses an insurmountable “legal impediment” to further criminal proceedings.
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