Donald Trump has been denied his claim of presidential immunity in his criminal hush-money trial.
Justice Juan Merchan ruled that “the defendant had myriad opportunities to raise the claim of presidential immunity” long before the former president did.
The judge said that because he was denying the motion on that basis he need not address whether presidential immunity “precludes the introduction of evidence of purported official presidential acts in a criminal proceeding”.
Mr Trump’s trial remains set to begin on 15 April.
Meanwhile, Special counsel Jack Smith has urged Judge Aileen Cannon, overseeing the classified documents case in Florida, to reject the former president’s contention that he had any claim to personal ownership over the boxes of top secret files reclaimed by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
The former president refused to return the documents to the National Archives when requested, leading to the case against him. Mr Smith is now calling on Judge Cannon to ignore Mr Trump’s claim that he designated the items as “personal” while president as “pure fiction”.
Elsewhere, Mr Trump is suing his fellow co-founders of the parent company behind Truth Social, to try to wrestle ownership from them.