NEW YORK — A judge must decide Tuesday whether to overturn President-elect Donald Trump’s conviction in his hush money case, due to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

New York Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s historic trial, is now tasked with deciding whether to overturn the jury’s verdict and order a new trial — or even dismiss the charges altogether. The judge’s decision could also indicate whether the former and now future commander-in-chief will be sentenced as scheduled on November 26.

The Republican won back the White House a week ago, but the legal question concerns his status as a former president, not his impending status.

A jury convicted Trump in May of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in 2016. The payment was intended to buy her silence over allegations that she had sex with Trump .

He says no, denies any wrongdoing and maintains the lawsuits were a political tactic intended to damage his latest campaign.

A little over a month after the verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that ex-presidents cannot be prosecuted for actions they committed while leading the country, and that prosecutors cannot cite these actions, even to support a case centered on purely personal reasons. to drive.

Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling to argue that the hush money jury got evidence it shouldn’t have, like Trump’s presidential financial disclosure form and testimony from some House aides White.

Prosecutors disagreed and said the evidence in question was only “a fragment” of their case.

Trump’s criminal conviction was a first for a former president. The 78-year-old faces penalties ranging from a fine or probation to four years in prison.

The case centered on how Trump reimbursed his personal lawyer for paying Daniels.

The lawyer, Michael Cohen, financed the case. He then recouped it through a series of payments that Trump’s company counted as legal fees. Trump, then in the White House, signed most of the checks himself.

Prosecutors said the designation was intended to conceal the true purpose of the payments and cover up a broader effort to prevent voters from hearing unflattering claims about the Republican during his first campaign.

Trump said Cohen was legitimately paid for legal services and that Daniels’ story was suppressed to avoid embarrassing Trump’s family and not to influence the electorate.

Trump was a private citizen — campaigning for president, but not elected or sworn in — when Cohen paid Daniels in October 2016. He was president when Cohen was reimbursed, and Cohen testified that they discussed repayment terms in the Oval Office.

Trump has been fighting for months to overturn the verdict and may now seek to leverage his status as president-elect. Although he was tried as a private citizen, his upcoming return to the White House could prompt a court to intervene and avoid the unprecedented spectacle of the conviction of a former and future president.

While urging Merchan to overturn the conviction, Trump also attempted to take the case to federal court. Before the election, a federal judge repeatedly said no to the ruling, but Trump appealed.