(The Center Square) – President-elect Donald Trump told a New York judge that his hush money case must be dropped for national stability.
“Continuing with this case would ‘be uniquely destabilizing’ and threaten to ‘hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus, both in foreign and domestic affairs,'” Trump’s defense attorneys, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, wrote in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan.
In late May, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on all counts in his hush money case. Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records for disguising hush money payments to an adult film actress as legal costs ahead of the 2016 election. Under New York state law, falsifying business records in the first degree is a Class E felony with a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
Trump and his attorneys want the judge to dismiss the case based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity decision. In July, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents and former presidents have absolute immunity for actions related to core constitutional powers and presumptive immunity for official actions. The ruling said the president has no immunity for unofficial conduct.
Merchan has delayed sentencing in the case multiple times, but has yet to decide how the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in July on presidential immunity could affect Trump’s conviction.
Trump has nominated both of his defense attorneys for federal jobs in his next administration.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg previously said that his office will oppose Trump’s motion to dismiss his felony conviction in New York. Bragg also said that despite plans to oppose Trump’s motion, his office would agree to hit pause on the proceedings pending the judge’s decision on Trump’s motion to dismiss. Bragg also suggested the case could wait until Trump finishes his final term in the White House.
“As DA Bragg engages in his own election campaign, DANY appears to not yet be ready to dismiss this politically-motivated and fatally flawed case, which is what is mandated by the law and will happen as justice takes its course,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
Bragg said earlier this week that there’s no reason to dismiss the conviction.
“No current law establishes that a president’s temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a post-trial criminal proceeding that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution and that is based on unofficial conduct for which the defendant is also not immune,” Bragg wrote in a letter to Merchan. “Rather, existing law suggests that the Court must balance competing constitutional interests and proceed ‘in a manner that preserves both the independence of the Executive and the integrity of the criminal justice system.'”
Trump’s defense team noted that the U.S. Department of Justice “is reportedly preparing to dismiss the federal cases against President Trump, and will report its final decision to federal courts on Dec. 2, 2024.”
Merchan previously said that if Trump’s dismissal motion fails, “the law requires the imposition of sentence following a guilty verdict without unreasonable delay.”
