Donald Trump’s attorneys are calling on the judge overseeing his hush money case to toss it 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,” 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.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — whose office landed a 34 felony count conviction against the former president on May 30 — 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.
Last month, prosecutors urged Justice Juan 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.
In a separate filing in the wake after Trump’s election victory, they argued that “same complete immunity from criminal process of any kind” that applies to a sitting president “extends to a President-elect during the transition period.”
“There is no material difference between President Trump’s current status after his overwhelming victory in the national election and that of a sitting President following inauguration,” they argued.
Moving forward with the case would be “uniquely destabilizing” and could “hamstring the operation of the whole government apparatus,” they wrote on November 19.
While prosecutors are “mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency” and understand that Trump’s return to the White House “will raise unprecedented legal questions,” they also “deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system,” prosecutors wrote.
Merchan had already delayed a decision on whether to toss Trump’s conviction despite previously rejected arguments from the former president that evidence used against him at trial falls under the scope of a Supreme Court decision on “immunity” that shields the presidency from some criminal prosecution.
Trump — whose campaigns 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.
This is a developing story
