'Fair game': Expert says judge's rejection of Trump immunity unlocks key evidence

Former President Donald Trump lost his ploy to claim presidential immunity in the Manhattan hush money case, with New York Judge Juan Merchan saying Trump did not properly make the claim in an orderly fashion.

The effect of this is somewhat different from the other cases where Trump has claimed immunity, noted Just Security's Adam Klasfeld.

Specifically, it was never in question whether Trump could be charged for the offense itself, because the alleged business fraud to conceal the payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels took place before Trump was even president. What Trump was seeking was for all his communications, including tweets, about the matter while he was president to be excluded.

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"Since the judge just rejected Trump's motion to exclude evidence on presidential immunity grounds, this tweet remains fair game for prosecutors for now," wrote Klasfeld.

And that matters, he said, because the tweets that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg can now use as evidence, including a 2018 claim that his former attorney Michael Cohen's brokering of an "NDA" with Daniels was unrelated to his campaign, imply Trump had full knowledge of the scheme for which he is being charged — limiting his ability to claim this wasn't his doing.

Some other Trump cases could hinge entirely on whether courts are willing to grant him presidential immunity. The federal election interference case is currently on hold while the Supreme Court considers the issue, and the Georgia racketeering case would also be affected.

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin agreed.

"In arguing presidential immunity should apply to the NY criminal case, Trump wasn't trying to throw out the case," she said Wednesday. "His argument, as @KlasfeldReports has noted, was that the DA shouldn't be able to use evidence of his official acts, including tweets like this ⬇️, which remains fair game."

"Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are," according to the tweet.