The Daily Fuckup

Donald Trump’s New York hush-money case was still active as December began. The jury had already returned guilty verdicts, but sentencing had been postponed, and Trump’s lawyers were getting ready to try to wipe out the result before he went back to the White House.

The key move arrived on Dec. 2, 2024. In a notice filed in state court, Trump’s lawyers asked the judge to dismiss the indictment and vacate the jury’s verdicts. The filing came after Trump’s Nov. 5 election win and before his Jan. 20 inauguration, leaving the case in an awkward in-between state: a completed trial outcome, no sentence, and a fresh bid to undo the whole thing. ([nycourts.gov](https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/BlancheLaw_120324.pdf?utm_source=openai))

That motion leaned partly on the Supreme Court’s July 1, 2024 immunity ruling, which held that a former president has absolute immunity for acts within exclusive constitutional authority, at least presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial conduct. The high court did not decide the New York case, and its ruling did not erase the state-court verdict on its own. But it gave Trump’s defense another way to argue that the conviction should not survive his return to office. ([supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf))

The practical posture mattered. This was the only criminal case in which Trump had received guilty verdicts before his second inauguration, and the unresolved sentencing kept the matter from becoming a closed chapter. His lawyers were asking the court to treat the verdicts as legally unsustainable; prosecutors were set to argue the opposite. ([nycourts.gov](https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/BlancheLaw_120324.pdf?utm_source=openai))

So the fight was not just about one Manhattan courtroom. It was about whether a state conviction reached before a second presidency should be allowed to stand once the defendant is again headed for the Oval Office. The answer depended on the record, the timing, and the law — not on how politically inconvenient the verdict had become. ([nycourts.gov](https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/BlancheLaw_120324.pdf?utm_source=openai))