NEW YORK, Dec 4 — Donald Trump yesterday asked a New York state judge to dismiss the criminal case in which he was convicted in May of 34 felony counts involving hush money paid to a porn star in light of his victory in the November 5 US presidential election.
In urging Justice Juan Merchan in Manhattan to vacate the guilty verdict and toss the charges, Trump’s lawyers said having Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case hang over him after he takes office on Jan. 20 would impede his ability to govern.
“Local elected officials such as D.A. Bragg have no valid basis to cause such disruptions,” defence lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in a court filing dated December 2 and made public yesterday.
Trump in November nominated Blanche to serve as deputy attorney general, the second-highest position at the Justice Department, during his administration. He nominated Bove to serve as Blanche’s top deputy and to be acting deputy attorney general while Blanche awaits confirmation.
Merchan last month delayed Trump’s previously scheduled Nov. 26 sentencing indefinitely to give him the chance to seek dismissal.
Prosecutors with Bragg’s office supported delaying the sentencing to give Trump the chance to make his case for dismissal, though they said they would oppose that bid. The prosecutors have until next Monday to respond.
The judge has not indicated when he would rule on Trump’s motion to dismiss and has not set a new date for sentencing.
Bragg’s office has suggested he defer all proceedings in the case until Trump, 78, leaves the White House in 2029.
In their motion to dismiss, Trump’s lawyers called that suggestion “ridiculous.” They said that would mean sentencing would happen more than a decade after the investigation started in 2018.
A spokesperson for Bragg’s office declined to comment.
Hunter Biden pardon
At the outset of their 72-page motion, Trump’s lawyers brought up Democratic President Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to pardon his son Hunter Biden, who was convicted on gun charges and pleaded guilty to tax violations.
Blanche and Bove said Biden’s statement that his son had been selectively prosecuted was an “extraordinary condemnation” of his Justice Department.
Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly asserted that Bragg, a Democrat, had coordinated his Trump prosecution with the Biden administration, citing the involvement in the case of Matthew Colangelo, a former Justice Department official.
“This case would never have been brought were it not for President Trump’s political views,” the defence lawyers wrote.
As an elected local prosecutor, Bragg operates independently of the federal Justice Department. Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee who runs the Justice Department, has denied Republican claims that he sent Colangelo to Bragg’s office to prosecute Trump.
“I did not dispatch Mr. Colangelo anywhere,” Garland said in congressional testimony on June 4.
A payment to Stormy Daniels
The New York case stemmed from a US$130,000 (RM580,970) payment Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.
A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to cover up his reimbursement of Cohen. It was the first time a US president - former or sitting - had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offense.
Trump pleaded not guilty in the case.
Trump was charged in three additional state and federal criminal cases in 2023, one involving classified documents he kept after leaving office and two others involving his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
He pleaded not guilty in all three cases. The Justice Department moved to dismiss the two federal cases after Trump’s election victory. — Reuters
