Trump dealt major blow in bid to quash hush money convictions before inauguration

President-elect Donald Trump’s race to shed himself of the criminal convictions he’s racked up in the four years since leaving the White House hit a roadblock Monday when a New York judge rejected his demand to let him off the hook in his fraud case involving hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Trump was convicted on all 34 felonies in May related to his falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to Daniels. New York Justice Juan Merchan’s refusal on Monday to clear him preserved those convictions.

If the ruling survives Trump’s appeal, the incoming president – who repeatedly billed himself as the “law and order candidate” during his campaign – would become the first felon president, The New York Times reported.

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“The ruling, which addressed the Supreme Court’s decision to grant presidents broad immunity for their official actions, thwarted only the first of several legal maneuvers Mr. Trump has concocted to clear his record of 34 felonies before returning to the White House,” the publication said.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg vehemently opposed Trump’s legal maneuver to have his convictions thrown out. Bragg wrote in a filing to Merchan made public last week that Trump presented no grounds for relief before Inauguration Day “because President-elect immunity does not exist.”

The 34 felonies that Trump was convicted of, Bragg noted in the filing, “involved purely unofficial conduct, not any official presidential acts.”

Monday’s ruling that agreed with prosecutors is “the first significant interpretation” of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, the Times noted.