The Daily Fuckup

A New York judge on Dec. 16, 2024, rejected Donald Trump’s bid to overturn his hush-money conviction by invoking the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. The decision left the verdict in place and shut down, for now, Trump’s effort to use that ruling as a way to erase the case after trial.

The ruling did not reopen the jury’s verdict or undo the conviction. Instead, it held that the high court’s immunity decision did not wipe away the criminal judgment in the Manhattan case, where prosecutors said Trump falsified business records tied to hush-money payments. The motion was denied, but the broader fight over the case is not finished, with appellate issues still available to Trump’s legal team.

For Trump, the practical effect is simple: the conviction remains on the record. That matters because his lawyers had tried to turn the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling into a reset button for the case. The court declined to do that. The result leaves Trump facing office with a still-valid criminal conviction, an unusual and politically loaded position for an incoming president.

The ruling also narrows the reach of the immunity decision itself. The judge did not accept the argument that protections for official presidential acts could be stretched backward to erase a completed criminal case based on conduct prosecutors said fell outside that shield. That distinction matters beyond this case, because it keeps immunity tied to its stated purpose instead of treating it like a blanket wipe for any legal trouble that touches a president.

Trump can keep fighting the conviction through the courts. But the immediate outcome is plain enough: the post-trial attempt to throw out the verdict failed, and the judgment stands unless a higher court says otherwise.