President-elect Donald Trump's "legal expense" conviction, put on ice Tuesday until Trump leaves office, should be permanently dismissed in order to avoid getting in the way of the constitutionally mandated "orderly transition of power," his lawyers argued in a filing Wednesday.
One day after Manhattan Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg forced the case to be kept on ice, Trump's legal team filed a request for Democrat Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss the case.
"Continuing with this case would be uniquely destabilizing," Defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, both of whom Trump nominated last week to top Department of Justice posts in his new administration, wrote seeking the judge's permission to file a motion to dismiss. "Just as a sitting president is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as president-elect."
The Manhattan district attorney's office wrote Tuesday in a court filing that Trump's forthcoming presidency is not grounds for dropping a case that was already tried. But, citing "the need to balance competing constitutional interests," prosecutors said "consideration must be given" to shelving the case until after he is out of office.
At the least, prosecutors said they're OK delaying Trump's sentencing — which had been set for Nov. 26 — while his lawyers fight to get the case tossed out.
Merchan has not said when he will rule on the fate of the first criminal conviction of a former, and now future, U.S. commander-in-chief. But with the sentencing schedule now effectively on hold, Trump's lawyers are pursuing multiple legal paths to try to dispose of the case — an effort that could reach the Supreme Court because of the unprecedented questions involved.
The president-elect was convicted in May of falsifying business records by calling a payment to personal attorney Michael Cohen a "legal expense" when he was president as a an alleged back payment for a nondisclosure agreement with adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign.
After Trump's election win this month, his lawyers urged Merchan to throw out the case and implored prosecutors to endorse that outcome, writing the case must be scrapped "to facilitate the orderly transition of executive power — and in the interests of justice."
In opposing dismissal, prosecutors wrote they "are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency" but also "deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system."
Trump spokesperson and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung cast Tuesday's filing from prosecutors as "a total and definitive victory for President Trump" in a case that he has long deplored as a "witch hunt."
"President Trump's legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all," Cheung wrote in a statement.
The judge last week delayed ruling on Trump's earlier bid to reverse his conviction because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in July that gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
A dismissal would erase Trump's conviction, sparing him the cloud of a criminal record as well as a possible prison sentence.
"To require President Trump to address further criminal proceedings at this point would not only violate the federal Constitution, but also disrupt the presidential transition process," Blanche and Bove wrote.
If the verdict stands and the case proceeds to sentencing, Trump's punishments would range from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison — but it is unlikely he would spend any time behind bars for a first-time conviction involving charges in the lowest tier of felonies.
Because it is a state case, Trump would not be able to pardon himself once he returns to office. Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes.
Special counsel Jack Smith is taking steps to wind down Trump's federal election interference and classified documents cases. A separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, is largely on hold.
Trump, a Republican, pleaded not guilty in all four cases, and he has decried the Bragg case's verdict as a "rigged, disgraceful" result. He has claimed the case was part of a Democrat effort to keep him from being elected to the White House again, which he ultimately was earlier this month.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.