Donald Trump’s lawyers told a judge that the Republican’s conviction for illegally covering up “hush money” payments to a porn star should be dismissed because he won the US presidential election and sentencing would threaten government stability.
In a letter filed on Tuesday and made public on Wednesday, the US president-elect’s lawyers asked New York state supreme court Justice Juan Merchan for permission to file a formal motion laying out their arguments by December 20th.
“Just as a sitting president is immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect,” the lawyers wrote.
Mr Trump (78) had been scheduled to be sentenced on November 26th, but Justice Merchan last week put all proceedings in the case on pause at the request of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
Mr Bragg’s office has said it will oppose Mr Trump’s bid to dismiss the case and suggested it should be paused until Mr Trump completes his four-year presidential term beginning on January 20th, though it stopped short of explicitly endorsing that option.
Mr Trump, president from 2017-2021, is hoping to enter office for a second term unencumbered by any of the four criminal cases he has faced and which some opponents had predicted would derail his 2024 candidacy to return to the White House.
He was convicted in May of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Mr Trump, who denies it.
It was the first time a US president – former or sitting – had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offence.
Mr Trump pleaded not guilty in the case, which he has long portrayed as a politically motivated attempt by Mr Bragg, a Democrat, to interfere with his campaign.
In their letter on Tuesday, Mr Trump’s lawyers said continuing the case after his election victory would be “uniquely destabilising” and threaten to “hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus”.
Falsification of business records is punishable by up to four years in prison. Before he was elected, experts said it was unlikely – but not impossible – that Mr Trump would face time behind bars, with punishments such as a fine or probation seen as more likely.
Mr Trump’s victory over Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris in the November 5th election made the prospect of imposing a sentence of jail or probation even more politically fraught and impractical, given that a sentence could have impeded his ability to conduct the duties of the presidency.
Mr Trump was charged in three additional state and federal cases in 2023, one involving classified documents he kept after leaving office and two others involving his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
A Florida-based federal judge in July dismissed the documents case. The US justice department is now evaluating how to wind down the federal election-related case. Mr Trump also faces state criminal charges in Georgia over his bid to reverse his 2020 loss in that state, but the case remains in limbo.
As president, Mr Trump would have no power to shut down the New York or Georgia cases because they were filed in state courts. His justice department may close the federal cases. – Reuters
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