Trump’s lawyers leverage immunity ruling to challenge hush money conviction

The lawyers argue that the Supreme Court’s decision confirmed a position the defence raised earlier in the case that prosecutors should have been precluded from introducing some evidence they said constituted official presidential acts, according to the letter.

In prior court filings, Trump contended he is immune from prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office. His lawyers did not raise that as a defence in the hush money case, but they argued that some evidence – including Trump’s social media posts about former lawyer Michael Cohen – comes from his time as president and should have been excluded from the trial because of immunity protections.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment on Monday night. A spokesperson for Trump didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Merchan instituted a policy in the run-up to the trial requiring both sides to send him a one-page letter summarising their arguments before making longer court filings. He said he did that to better manage the docket, so he was not inundated with voluminous paperwork.

In denying Trump’s bid to move the trial from New York state court to federal court last year, a federal judge found that the allegations at the centre of the case pertained to Trump’s personal life, and do not “reflect in any way the colour of the president’s official duties.”

“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the president – a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein wrote in the ruling.