President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers have formally asked a judge to throw out his hush money criminal conviction, arguing that continuing the case would present unconstitutional “disruptions to the institution of the presidency”.
In a filing made public on Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers told Manhattan Judge Juan M Merchan that dismissal is warranted because of the extraordinary circumstances of his impending return to the White House.
“Wrongly continuing proceedings in this failed lawfare case disrupts President Trump’s transition efforts,” the lawyers continued, before citing the “overwhelming national mandate granted to him by the American people on November 5 2024”.
Trump’s lawyers also cited President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of tax and gun charges.
“President Biden asserted that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted’, and ”treated differently’,” Trump’s legal team wrote. The Manhattan district attorney, they claimed, had engaged in the type of political theatre “that President Biden condemned”.
Prosecutors will have until December 9 to respond. They have said they will fight any efforts to dismiss the case but have indicated openness to delaying sentencing until after Trump’s second term ends in 2029.
In their filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers dismissed the idea of holding off sentencing until Trump is out of office as a “ridiculous suggestion”.
Following Trump’s election victory last month, Judge Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed his sentencing, previously scheduled for late November, to allow the defence and prosecution to weigh in on the future of the case.
He also delayed a decision on Trump’s prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds. Trump has been fighting for months to reverse the conviction.
It involved efforts to conceal a 130,000 dollar payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to disrupt his 2016 campaign. He has denied any wrongdoing. Trump takes office on January 20.
Judge Merchan has not set a timetable for a decision. The defence filing was signed by Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who represented Trump during the trial.
They have since been selected by the president-elect to fill senior roles at the Justice Department. A dismissal would erase Trump’s historic conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record and possible prison sentence.
Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office. Judge Merchan could also decide to uphold the verdict and proceed to sentencing or delay the case until Trump leaves office.
And he can also wait until a federal appeals court rules on Trump’s parallel effort to get the case moved out of state court or choose some other option.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a 130,000 dollar hush money payment to Ms Daniels, just before the 2016 presidential election, to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier.
He says they did not and denies any wrongdoing. Prosecutors cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him. Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid Ms Daniels.
Trump later reimbursed him, and Trump’s company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses – concealing what they really were, prosecutors alleged.
Trump has pledged to appeal against the verdict if the case is not dismissed. He and his lawyers said the payments to Mr Cohen were properly categorised as legal expenses for legal work.
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