NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for President-elect Donald Trump again urged a judge Friday to throw out his hush money conviction, opposing prosecutors’ suggestion that he uphold the verdict by handling the case as some courts do when a suspect dies before sentencing. They called the idea ‘absurd’.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is asking Judge Juan M. Merchan to “act as if any of the assassination attempts against President Trump had been successful,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a blistering 23-page response.
In court documents made public Tuesday, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office proposed a series of options to keep the historic conviction on the books after Trump’s lawyers filed paperwork earlier this month asking for the case to be dismissed .
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Those options include freezing the case until Trump leaves office in 2029, agreeing that any future punishment will not include prison time, or closing the case by noting that he was convicted but not was convicted and that his appeal was not resolved due to presidential immunity.
Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove reiterated Friday that the only acceptable option for them is to overturn his conviction and dismiss his indictment, writing that anything less will hinder the transition process and his ability to lead the country .
The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined comment.
It is unclear how quickly Merchan will decide. He could grant Trump’s dismissal request, follow one of the prosecutor’s suggestions, wait for a federal appeals court to rule on Trump’s parallel attempt to get the case thrown out of state court, or choose some other option .
In their response Friday, Blanche and Bove ripped all the prosecutor’s suggestions.
Halting the case until Trump leaves office would force the new president to govern while facing the “continuing threat” that he will be sentenced to prison, fines or other penalties once his term ends, Blanche and Bove wrote . Trump, a Republican, takes office on January 20.
“To be clear, President Trump will never deviate from the public interest in response to these nefarious tactics,” the defense attorneys wrote. “However, the threat itself is unconstitutional.”
The prosecutor’s suggestion that Merchan could address these concerns by promising not to sentence Trump to prison under presidential immunity is also a non-starter, Blanche and Bove wrote. At a minimum, the immunity statute should require dropping the case altogether, not just limiting the judge’s sentencing options, they argued.
Blanche and Bove, both of whom Trump nominated to top positions at the Justice Department, expressed outrage at the prosecutor’s new suggestion that Merchan would borrow from Alabama and other states and handle the case as if Trump had died.
Blanche and Bove accused prosecutors of ignoring New York precedent and trying to “fabricate” a solution “based on an extremely disturbing and irresponsible analogy between President Trump “surviving assassination attempts in Pennsylvania in July and Florida in September” and a hypothetical dead defendant. ”
Such an option normally comes into play when a suspect dies after being convicted but before the appeal options have been exhausted. It’s unclear whether it’s feasible under New York law, but prosecutors suggested Merchan could innovate in what is already a unique case.
“This remedy would prevent the defendant from being burdened by an ongoing criminal proceeding during his presidency,” prosecutors wrote in their filing this week. But at the same time, the “meaningful fact that the suspect was indicted and found guilty by a jury of his peers” would not be “hastily discarded.”
Prosecutors acknowledged that “presidential immunity requires accommodation” during Trump’s upcoming return to the White House, but argued that his election to a second term should not upset a jury’s conclusion, which came while he was out of office.
Longstanding Justice Department policy says that sitting presidents cannot face criminal charges. Other world leaders do not enjoy the same protection. For example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a friend of Trump, is on trial on corruption charges even as he directs that country’s wars in Lebanon and Gaza.
Trump has been fighting for months to overturn his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying corporate records. Prosecutors say he falsified the documents to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier, which Trump denies.
In their filing Friday, Trump’s lawyers cited a social media post in which Sen. John Fetterman used profane language to criticize Trump’s hush-money prosecution. The Pennsylvania Democrat suggested Trump deserved a pardon, comparing his case to that of President Joe Biden’s pardoned son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on tax and gun charges.
“Weaponizing the judiciary for blatant, partisan gain diminishes collective trust in our institutions and sows further division,” Fetterman wrote in Truth Social on Wednesday.
Trump’s hush money conviction took place in state court, meaning a presidential pardon — issued by Biden or himself when he took office — would not apply to the case. Presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes.
Since the election, Special Counsel Jack Smith has ended his two federal cases, which involved Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and allegations that he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
A separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, has been largely stayed. Trump denies wrongdoing in all respects.
Trump was expected to be convicted in the hush money case at the end of November. But after Trump’s election victory on November 5, Merchan halted the proceedings and postponed the sentencing of the former and future president indefinitely so that the defense and prosecution could exert their influence on the future of the case.
Merchan also postponed a decision on Trump’s earlier bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds.
A dismissal would erase Trump’s conviction and spare him the cloud of a criminal record and possible prison time. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted felon to be elected to office.
