President-elect Trump on Tuesday condemned Judge Juan Merchan’s decision allowing a jury verdict to stand in the hush money case despite the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year that largely shields former presidents from criminal prosecution.
Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that the judge’s decision “completely disrespected the United States Supreme Court, and its Historic Decision on Immunity,” adding that regardless of the presidential immunity ruling, the case is “illegitimate.”
The Supreme Court’s July ruling determined presidents have absolute immunity for actions that fall within the core responsibilities of their office and are presumptively immune for all other official acts.
“The evidence related to the preserved claims relate entirely to unofficial conduct and thus, receive no immunity protections; and as to the claims that were unpreserved, this Court finds in the alternative, that when considered on the merits, they too are denied because they relate entirely to unofficial conduct,” Merchan wrote in his ruling.
The judge has not yet ruled on Trump’s efforts to toss the case entirely now that he is president-elect.
Trump railed against the decision on social media, calling it a “completely illegal, psychotic order” and arguing that Merchan was incompetent and biased.
“Merchan, who is a radical partisan, wrote an opinion that is knowingly unlawful, goes against our Constitution, and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it,” Trump argued.
The New York hush money case was the first-ever criminal prosecution of a former U.S. president, and the only one to have reached trial.
Other cases against Trump have fallen off since his Electgion Day win.
Special counsel Jack Smith dismissed all charges against Trump in his federal election subversion and classified documents cases, while the president-elect’s Georgia criminal case is paused indefinitely as an appeals court weighs a pretrial defense challenge. Trump’s lawyers have pushed to end that case, too.
