Trump seeks to overturn criminal conviction, citing Supreme Court ruling on immunity

Donald Trump is trying to take advantage of a Supreme Court Decision claiming that presidents are immune from federal prosecution for official actions aimed at overturning his conviction in a New York state criminal case.

The letter to the judge presiding over the New York case is not yet public. It was filed Monday after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision slowed down the former president’s criminal cases.

A spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to comment when asked about Trump’s efforts to overturn the conviction, which were first reported by The New York Times.

Trump’s criminal case in New York is the only one of the four against him to go to trial. On May 30, a unanimous jury concluded Trump was guilty Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal the repayment of a “kickback” payment to an adult film star. Trump agreed to falsify the documents while he was in the White House in 2017.

The Supreme Court’s decision Monday extended immunity from criminal prosecution to former presidents for their official conduct. But whether Trump participated in official acts has already been litigated in his New York trial.

In 2023, Trump sought to transfer the case from state to federal jurisdiction. His lawyers argued that the allegations related to official acts carried out in his presidential capacity.

That argument was rejected by a federal judge who wrote that Trump had failed to demonstrate that his conduct was “related to an act performed by or for the President under color of the official acts of a President.”

“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that this matter was purely personal for the president — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” wrote U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein. “Paying an adult film star to keep quiet is not related to the official actions of a president. It in no way reflects the color of the president’s official duties.”

Trump initially appealed the decision, but later dropped it.

His case went to trial in April, and shortly after the jury’s unanimous decision finding him guilty, Trump vowed to appeal the conviction.

Trump should be sentenced on July 11Prosecutors are expected to file a sentencing recommendation on Monday. That recommendation has not been made public.