A New York judge on Monday denied president-elect Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss his hush-money conviction, finding that the evidence introduced in the case was not related to Trump’s official conduct as president and thus did not receive any immunity protections.

Judge Juan Merchan rejected Trump’s motion to dismiss his indictment and vacate the jury verdict against him. Merchan stated that the prosecution’s evidence related “entirely to unofficial conduct” that was outside the scope of the presidency. The judge further said that even if the evidence was deemed official conduct, the court “would still find that 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.” He added that even if the evidence had been improperly introduced, the error was “harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt.”

The US Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for actions taken within the scope of their presidential duties. Trump then claimed that certain evidence introduced in the hush-money trial had been presented to the jury in violation of this presidential immunity doctrine. The challenged evidence included testimony from former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks and Twitter (now X) posts on Trump’s official White House account.

In March 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. A jury then convicted the former president on all counts in May. Trump had sent $130,000 in reimbursements to his attorney Michael Cohen as a “hush-money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The prosecution argued Trump falsified records to conceal the payments in order to unlawfully influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election.

Trump has not yet been sentenced in the case. His sentencing was originally scheduled for July, but Merchan pushed the date until September 18 so that he could consider the presidential immunity claim. Merchan then delayed the sentencing to November 26, three weeks after the presidential election. But on November 22, the judge indefinitely postponed the sentencing as a result of Trump’s victory in the election.

Trump also moved to dismiss the conviction due to the election results, and Merchan has not ruled on this motion yet. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg expressed his opposition to this argument last week, writing to Merchan that “[p]resident-elect immunity does not exist.”

Trump is set to return to office on January 20.