NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� A judge is due to decide Tuesday President-elect Donald Trump鈥檚 conviction in his hush money case because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
New York Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump's historic trial, is now tasked with deciding whether to toss out the jury verdict and order a new trial 鈥� or even dismiss the charges altogether. The judge's ruling also could speak to whether the former and now future commander-in-chief will be sentenced as scheduled Nov. 26.
The Republican a week ago but the legal question concerns his status as a past president, not an impending one.
A jury of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in 2016. The payout was to buy her silence about claims that she had sex with Trump.
He says they didn鈥檛, denies any wrongdoing and maintains the prosecution was a political tactic meant to harm his latest campaign.
Just over a month after the verdict, the that ex-presidents can鈥檛 be prosecuted for actions they took in the course of running the country, and prosecutors can鈥檛 cite those actions even to bolster a case centered on purely personal conduct.
argue that the hush money jury got some evidence it shouldn't have, such as Trump鈥檚 presidential financial disclosure form and testimony from some White House aides.
and said the evidence in question was only 鈥渁 sliver鈥� of their case.
Trump's criminal conviction was a first for any ex-president. It left the 78-year-old facing the possibility of punishment ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.
The case centered on how Trump accounted for reimbursing his personal attorney for the Daniels payment.
The lawyer, Michael Cohen, fronted the money. He later recouped it through a series of payments that Trump鈥檚 company logged as legal expenses. Trump, by then in the White House, signed most of the checks himself.
Prosecutors said the designation was meant to cloak the true purpose of the payments and help cover up a broader effort to keep voters from hearing unflattering claims about the Republican during his first campaign.
Trump said that Cohen was legitimately paid for legal services, and that Daniels鈥� story was suppressed to avoid embarrassing Trump鈥檚 family, not to influence the electorate.
Trump was a private citizen 鈥� campaigning for president, but neither elected nor sworn in 鈥� when Cohen paid Daniels in October 2016. He was president when Cohen was reimbursed, and Cohen testified that they discussed the repayment arrangement in the Oval Office.
Trump has been fighting for months to overturn the verdict and could now seek to leverage his status as president-elect. Although he was tried as a private citizen, his forthcoming return to the White House could propel a court to step in and avoid the unprecedented spectacle of sentencing a former and future president.
While urging Merchan to nix the conviction, Trump also has been trying to move the case to federal court. Before the election, a federal judge to the move, but Trump .
Jennifer Peltz And Michael R. Sisak, The Associated Press
