“I Won the Election So I’m Innocent” Is an Unconvincing Legal Argument

Hold on. Is this court telling me that paying off the porn star you allegedly banged so as to help yourself win the election is not a part of the official duties of the president of the United States? Really? In that case, why in hell does anyone want the job anyway? Yeesh.

From The New York Times:

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. Prosecutors had argued that the Supreme Court’s decision had “no bearing on this prosecution,” noting that Mr. Trump was convicted of orchestrating a scheme involving a personal and political crisis that predated his presidency.

In the first significant interpretation of that polarizing opinion, the New York judge who oversaw the trial sided with prosecutors, concluding that the testimony centered on Mr. Trump’s unofficial conduct. “The People’s use of these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch,” the judge, Juan M. Merchan, wrote in a 41-page decision. And even if the evidence was “admitted in error, such error was harmless,” he added, noting the “overwhelming evidence of guilt” introduced at trial.

John Roberts must be so proud.

Of course, this will be appealed. Of course, there will be several other attempts to expunge the president-elect’s crimes on various fanciful grounds, including this one, which is flatly hilarious.

And the matter of immunity is hardly Mr. Trump’s only path to unwinding his New York conviction. He has also sought to leverage his electoral victory to throw out the case, citing a 1963 law that enshrined the importance of a smooth transition into the presidency, and a longstanding Justice Department policy that states a sitting president cannot face federal criminal prosecution.

Points of Order:

1) “I won the election so I’m innocent” is an unconvincing legal argument. And,

2) This is not a “prosecution” at all. The prosecution ended months ago, and a fine prosecution it was, since the prosecutors clearly won their case. What the president-elect’s lawyers are seeking to do is overturn a verdict won by a successful prosecution.

This is simply an elaborate legal strategy to prevent people from being able to refer to the president-elect as a “convicted felon,” which he is, at least for the moment. It is helpful to call things what they actually are.