New York prosecutors say President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House should not undermine the decision of 12 jurors who found him guilty. dozens of crimes in May, he told the judge overseeing the case that the conviction should be upheld.
“This Court should reject this [Trump’s] motion to ‘immediately’ dismiss the indictment and reverse the jury’s guilty verdict based on the outcome of the recent presidential election,” prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg wrote in their filing, which was made public Tuesday. Relief now, before the inauguration of the defendant, because the immunity of the president-elect does not exist.”
Shortly after Trump’s election in November, his lawyers vowed to urge Judge Juan Merchan to drop his indictment in the “hush money” case and set aside the verdict. They filed their motion on December 2 give them a push to override the will of twelve jurors who took part in the seven-week trial on an unlikely subject: President Biden’s son Hunter. Trump’s lawyers said the announcement was from Hunter Biden controversial pardon echoed Trump’s complaints about his prosecution, claiming it was politically driven.
Prosecutors did not mention Biden or the pardon in their response request.
They hit back at the heart of Trump’s attempt to overturn his conviction. Trump’s lawyers — two of whom will take senior roles at the Justice Department after Trump’s inauguration — have argued that it would be unconstitutional for a new president to bear the burden of a guilty verdict passed before his election had been spoken.
“[Trump’s] The suggestion that his subsequent election ‘supersedes’ the jury’s verdict is deeply misleading,” prosecutors wrote. “As this Court carefully and correctly instructed the jury, it was the empaneled jurors who ‘decided whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty,’ because only these jurors – and not the general electorate – have heard all the evidence in this trial.”
Mark Peterson/AP
Prosecutors argued that Trump’s lawyers are ‘effectively trying to extend the period of the sentence’ [Trump’s] immunity until a time before his presidency, by nullifying the effects of an indictment and jury verdict that occurred before he was even re-elected president.
Trump’s conviction has been postponed three times since his conviction in May. It was initially scheduled for July 11, but Merchan pushed back that date so Trump’s lawyers could file a separate motion to dismiss following a landmark Supreme Court ruling. The country’s highest court concluded in early July that former presidents could not be charged for official actsand evidence relating to their official work as president could not be used as evidence against them.
Merchan has not yet ruled on this motion. He postponed the date of the second sentencing, September 18, after Trump’s lawyers argued it was too close to the election. After Trump’s election victory on November 5, they demanded that the sentencing date of November 26 be postponed so that they could file a new motion to dismiss the case, which revolved around his return to the White House.
Bragg’s office said in its filing that it would be open to delaying sentencing and other proceedings until after Trump’s term, which ends in 2029.
“Like [Trump] has not been convicted before his inauguration, there is also no legal barrier to delaying that conviction until after the end of his presidency,” they wrote.
The judge’s decision will be the final moment in the case to set a historical precedent. Trump was the first person to be elected president after being convicted of crimes. When the unanimous jury decided in May he pleaded guilty to 34 charges of falsifying company records. He became the first former president ever convicted of crimes. In March 2023, Trump became the first former president ever indicted when a grand jury ruled that he should be indicted.
The case focused on covering up a “hush money” payment to an adult film star. Trump approved a scheme to hide refunds to a lawyer who made the payments days before Trump’s first election.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case and has vowed to appeal his conviction.
