Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who initiated the historic criminal trial against Donald Trump for concealed payments to a porn star, said Thursday he opposed the former US president’s request to overturn his conviction from late May.
The former Republican tenant of the White House (2017-2021), who dreams of returning there, had demanded at the beginning of July the pure and simple cancellation of his trial by invoking a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, with a conservative majority which had broadened ten days earlier the scope of presidential criminal immunity.
The Manhattan Criminal Court “should deny the defendant’s motion to vacate his conviction and indictment based on the Supreme Court’s recent decision on presidential immunity,” Bragg wrote in a 70-page memorandum.
Attorney Bragg argues that there is “no immunity” for “unofficial acts” by a U.S. president.
The highest federal court in the United States, composed of nine supreme justices in Washington – including six conservatives – had recognized the 1er July extended criminal immunity to the former president, a victory for Donald Trump facing four criminal cases.
The billionaire was convicted on May 30 by the Manhattan Criminal Court presided over by Judge Juan Merchan for 34 offenses of falsifying accounting documents, intended to hide, just before his victory in the November 2016 presidential election, a payment of $130,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels so that she would keep quiet about a sexual relationship she says she had with him in 2006 and which he denies.
Donald Trump is the first former U.S. president to be convicted of criminal charges.
His sentencing was scheduled for July 11 but was postponed because of the Supreme Court decision in Washington.
Judge Merchan assured that he would rule on the request for annulment on September 6 but that, if it was rejected, the sentence would be pronounced on September 18.