Trump’s lawyers call for judge to throw out hush money conviction
President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers urged a judge again Friday to throw out his hush money conviction, baulking at the prosecution’s suggestion of preserving the verdict by treating the case the way some courts do when a defendant dies before sentencing.
Lawyers for Mr Trump called the idea “absurd”.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is asking Judge Juan M Merchan to “pretend as if one of the assassination attempts against President Trump had been successful,” Mr Trump’s lawyers wrote in a blistering 23-page response.
In court papers made public on Tuesday, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office proposed an array of options for keeping the historic conviction on the books after Mr Trump’s lawyers filed paperwork earlier this month asking for the case to be dismissed.
Those options include freezing the case until Mr Trump leaves office in 2029, agreeing that any future sentence won’t include jail time, or closing the case by noting he was convicted but that he wasn’t sentenced and his appeal wasn’t resolved because of presidential immunity.
Mr Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove reiterated on Friday that the only acceptable option to them is overturning his conviction and dismissing his indictment, writing that anything less will interfere with the transition process and his ability to lead the country.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment.
In their response on Friday, Mr Blanche and Ms Bove criticised each of the prosecution’s suggestions and accused prosecutors of ignoring New York precedent and attempting to “fabricate” a solution “based on an extremely troubling and irresponsible analogy between President Trump” who survived assassination attempts in Pennsylvania in July and Florida in September “and a hypothetical dead defendant”.
Such an option normally comes into play when a defendant dies after being convicted but before appeals are exhausted. It is unclear whether it is viable under New York law, but prosecutors suggested that Mr Merchan could innovate in what is already a unique case.
“This remedy would prevent the defendant from being burdened during his presidency by an ongoing criminal proceeding,” prosecutors wrote in their filing. But at the same time, it wouldn’t “precipitously discard” the “meaningful fact that defendant was indicted and found guilty by a jury of his peers”.
Prosecutors acknowledged that “presidential immunity requires accommodation” during Mr Trump’s impending return to the White House but argued that his election to a second term should not upend a jury’s finding that came while he was out of office.
Longstanding Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution.
Mr Trump has been fighting for months to reverse his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Prosecutors said he fudged the documents to conceal a 130,000 dollar payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier, which Mr Trump denies.
Mr Trump had been scheduled for sentencing in late November but following his election victory, Mr Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed the former and future president’s sentencing so the defence and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.
Mr Merchan also delayed a decision on Mr Trump’s prior bid to dismiss the case on immunity grounds.
A dismissal would erase Mr Trump’s conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record and possible prison sentence. Mr Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.