Donald Trump’s attorneys are calling on the judge overseeing his hush money trial to toss the case altogether, pointing to President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, and raising the idea that presidential “immunity” should apply to the president-elect.
The “disruptions to the institution of the Presidency violate the Presidential immunity doctrine because they threaten the functioning of the federal government,” the criminally convicted former president’s attorneys wrote in a 72-page filing made public on Tuesday.
Trump’s lead criminal defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — both of whom were nominated by Trump for top roles at the Department of Justice — quoted from President Biden’s own statement claiming that his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” and “treated differently.”
“President Biden argued that ‘raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.’ These comments amounted to an extraordinary condemnation of President Biden’s own DOJ,” they wrote “As President Biden put it ... ‘Enough is enough.’”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — whose office landed a 34-felony count conviction against the former president earlier this year — has “engaged in ‘precisely the type of political theater’ that President Biden has condemned,” according to Trump’s attorneys.
Prosecutors have until December 9 to respond.
New York Justice Juan Merchan has agreed to postpone Trump’s sentencing date indefinitely as he hears his latest arguments on whether to vacate the conviction and dismiss the case.
Last month, prosecutors urged Merchan to reject Trump’s arguments but did not oppose a delay in the proceedings, floating the prospect of moving a potential sentencing hearing to 2029, “after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term,” in an effort to preserve their case and the jury’s unanimous verdict.
Moving forward with the case after Trump’s election would be “uniquely destabilizing” and could “hamstring the operation of the whole government apparatus,” his attorneys wrote on November 19.
Merchan had already delayed a decision on Trump’s separate “immunity” claims that evidence used against him at trial falls under the scope of a Supreme Court decision that shields the presidency from some criminal prosecution.
Here, Trump’s attorneys argue that his “overwhelming victory” in the 2024 presidential election and his status as a “soon-to-be sitting President” entitles him to that shield of immunity, which has created an “unavoidable ‘legal impediment’” to further proceedings in this case.
The “continued criminal proceedings pose a constitutionally unacceptable risk of diversion” from his upcoming presidency, they argued.
Trump — whose campaign relied on a narrative of political persecution and retribution against a justice system he accuses of conspiring against him — continues to insist he has done nothing wrong.
On May 30, a jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in connection with a scheme to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose story about having sex with Trump threatened his 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump’s reimbursements to his then-attorney Michael Cohen, who paid off Daniels, were falsely recorded in accounting records as “legal expenses.”
Further delays in his sentencing, and the potential for the case to be frozen for four years or tossed altogether, mean that Trump will enter office having avoided any consequences for the allegations and convictions against him.
Special counsel Jack Smith has effectively closed the federal criminal cases against the former president, for now, and an appeals court in Georgia has postponed arguments related to his election interference case in Fulton County.
