Attorneys for President-elect Donald Trump on Friday slammed a suggestion by Manhattan prosecutors that a judge should consider an option for Trump’s “hush money” case that is typically used when a defendant dies before sentencing.
In a filing earlier this week, prosecutors had suggested that Justice Juan Merchan could terminate Trump’s criminal case “with a notation that the jury verdict has not been vacated and the indictment has not been dismissed.” They acknowledged it’s an option that’s surfaced when defendants die before case proceedings conclude, but called it a “novel” solution to the dilemma of a case being interrupted, after conviction, by a defendant’s election to the presidency.
In a reply Friday, Trump attorney’s Todd Blanche and Emil Bove called that idea “unhinged.” They said it’s “an extremely troubling and irresponsible analogy between President Trump — who has survived multiple assassination attempts, and will soon be ‘the only person who alone composes a branch of government’ — and a hypothetical dead defendant.”
The filing comes as Trump and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have sought to influence Merchan’s forthcoming decision on how to proceed with the case. Trump was convicted in May, but his sentencing was repeatedly postponed, and in the interim he was elected president.
Trump is due to return to the White House on Jan. 20.
Bragg’s office says Trump’s election should not undermine the decision of 12 jurors who found him guilty of dozens of felonies. Trump’s attorneys argued in the filing Friday and in a motion to dismiss earlier this month that the Constitution requires his conviction to be set aside, and the case against him tossed, because he was elected.
“The federal Constitution, which guarantees presidential immunity, is the supreme law,” Blanche and Bove wrote, in a section of their filing entitled, “Presidential immunity categorically forecloses further proceedings.”
Prosecutors argued in their previous filing that presidential immunity is not yet applicable, because Trump has not yet returned to the Oval Office.
“President-elect immunity does not exist,” they wrote, urging Merchan to move forward with a decision before Trump’s inauguration.
A unanimous jury concluded in May that Trump was guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records. The verdict made Trump the first former president ever convicted of crimes. On Nov. 5, he became the first person with a criminal record in U.S. history to be elected president.
Trump pleaded not guilty in the case and has promised to appeal his conviction, if it is not thrown out.