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(Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)
This afternoon Donald Trump’s motion to adjourn his New York state criminal case hit the public docket, and it is goddamn delightful. The former president argues that his March 25 trial for creating false business records must be adjourned pending the Supreme Court’s ruling on his immunity claims in the election interference case.
What does presidential immunity have to do with Trump hiding the 2016 payoff to Stormy Daniels in the Trump Organization’s receivables as a “retainer payment” to Michael Cohen?
Well, nothing.
Indeed, Judge Alvin Hellerstein already tossed Trump’s attempt to get the case removed to federal court because none of the conduct implicated his official presidential duties.
“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” he wrote last July. “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the President’s official duties.”
Perhaps mindful that their topline request is likely to fall on deaf ears, Trump’s attorneys have a second immunity demand which is less patently ridiculous, but only marginally so. They insist that because Trump can’t be charged with official acts, those official acts must also be excluded as evidence in the case.
So for instance Trump objects to the inclusion of his tweets, reasoning that he used his Twitter account as an official means of communication, and thus his social media posts were part of his job.
“President Trump’s social media posts and public statements — while acting as President and viewed in context — fell within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duty, to which communicating with the public on matters of public concern was central,” they intone somberly.
And indeed, Trump did use his @realDonaldTrump account to announce that he’d fired government officials or was going to throw every transgender service member out of the military. He also used the platform to livetweet Fox and Friends most mornings, shitposting as the founding fathers intended.
It’s no mystery why he wants to keep his social media rants away from the jurors. Trump ran his mouth constantly on Twitter for the entirety of his presidency, including on the topic of the Stormy Daniels payoff.
The prohibition, if indeed it exists, is on charging someone for crimes committed in an official capacity. There’s no such ban on using those official acts as evidence. But Trump’s lawyers are swinging for the fences on this fakakta claim.
“Because OGE regulates Executive Branch personnel, President Trump’s communications with OGE during his first term were also official acts and are therefore also inadmissible at trial,” they write, demanding to keep Trump’s financial disclosures out of evidence.
They also want to bar anything he said to reporters during his presidency, such as on April 5, 2018, where he deferred questions about the payoff, saying “Michael is my attorney. And you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen.”
You don’t ask, you don’t get, right? Although sometimes you ask, and you don’t get, and you make the judge hate you even more.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
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