NEW YORK (AP) — A day after New York prosecutors said they will fight efforts to dismiss Donald Trump’s hush-money conviction, the president-elect’s lawyers have urged a judge to throw out the case and to resolve the matter before he takes office in January.
Continuing their arguments since Trump’s victory, his lawyers said in a letter to Judge Juan M. Merchan on Wednesday that continuing the case will hamper Trump’s preparations for his return to the White House and his ability to govern the country will hinder.
The attorneys, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, said they will file paperwork formalizing their dismissal request and asked Merchan for a Dec. 20 deadline, after special counsel Jack Smith’s team is expected to reveal the next steps it will take from plan to take part in two federal cases. against Trump.
Blanche and Bove urged Merchan to heed the will of the voters who returned Trump to power, rather than the word of the prosecutors, who are often referred to in court proceedings and filings as representatives of the ‘people of the State of New York’.
They warned of lengthy appeals that would overlap with Trump’s second term if what they considered a “politically motivated and fatally flawed” case is not resolved expeditiously.
“On November 5, 2024, the People of the Nation issued a mandate that supersedes the motivations of the ‘People’ (of the prosecutor),” Blanche and Bove wrote. “This case must be dismissed immediately.”
Trump has tapped both Blanche and Bove for top jobs at the Justice Department.
Trump was convicted in May of falsifying business records to cover up a scheme to influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to suppress a story about extramarital sex. Trump denies the accusations.
In a court filing Tuesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said it opposes any effort to dismiss Trump’s case but is open to potentially delaying his sentencing until after his second term.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said Trump’s looming presidency is not a reason to drop a case that has already been decided by a jury.
But citing “the need to balance competing constitutional interests,” prosecutors said “consideration should be given” to pausing the case and delaying Trump’s sentencing until after he is no longer in office .
Prosecutors looked in their case for an even faster plan than the defense to resolve the dismissal issue. They suggested that the defense file the paperwork within a week or two so that they could file their response by December 9.
Merchan has not set a schedule or said when he will rule.
In the meantime, the case is effectively on hold. Trump’s sentencing, which was set for November 26, will not go ahead as planned.
A dismissal would overturn Trump’s conviction, the first of a former and now future U.S. president. If the verdict stands and the case leads to a conviction, Trump’s penalties would range from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
