Donald Trump suffered defeat on Monday in his ongoing battle to overturn his only criminal conviction – for fraud related to paying porn star Stormy Daniels – as a New York judge rejected the president-elect’s appeal of presidential immunity.

Trump was convicted of concealing a $130,000 payment before the 2016 presidential election to Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about their sexual encounter ten years earlier.

The decision of the sentence has not yet been announced and he always denies that he had any relationship with the actress.

Trump’s lawyers invoked presidential immunity and asked to have their principal’s conviction (on May 30) overturned. They argued that evidence and depositions should not be presented at trial as they related to their client’s “official duties.”

Judge Juan Merchan, however, ruled that the actions for which the tycoon was convicted were unrelated to his presidential duties and therefore not covered by presidential immunity.

He judged that even if some of the evidence was used unfairly, this does not have much weight, given “the overwhelming evidence of guilt” of the accused.

Donald Trump was convicted in that case of “aggravated accounting fraud to conceal a conspiracy to alter” the outcome of the 2016 election. His sentencing has been postponed several times.

Fight not to impose a “prison sentence”

After his victory in the November 5 presidential election, his lawyers filed a new appeal, citing his status as president-elect, which they called incompatible with the verdict.

The judge invited the parties earlier this month to present their arguments on it. He hasn’t decided yet.

The prosecution opposes overturning the conviction, but says it is willing to discuss “arrangements” so the criminal case does not “burden” the Republican’s second term in office.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg thus proposed to the judge that Donald Trump should not be sentenced to “prison time” or that he should be sentenced to “suspension for the duration of his term” in the office of president, which is four years, that is, until January 2029.

Of the four criminal cases facing Donald Trump, this is the only one in which the candidate went to trial before the winning presidential election — a scenario unprecedented in American history.

In late November, special counsel Jack Smith requested—the request was granted—that the federal criminal charges for Mr. Trump to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and for retaining classified and confidential documents after he left office in 2021.

After consultations, the Justice Department concluded that its policy since the 1973 Watergate scandal, which provides that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, “applies in this situation” without precedent, Mr. Smith.

A conclusion that “does not depend” on the gravity of the offenses, how strong the indictment is or the background of the prosecution, he clarified.

In the state of Georgia (southeast), where Mr. Trump was facing criminal charges along with 14 others for a similar case — an attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election — the Republican’s defense asked the state court to declare incompetence, as “he is now the president-elect and will soon be the 47th president of the USA”.