Lawyers for President-elect Donald Trump have officially requested to “immediately” dismiss charges against him in New York v. Trump, declaring the “failed lawfare” case “should never have been brought.”
“President Donald J. Trump respectfully submits this motion to dismiss the Indictment and vacate the jury’s verdicts…,” they wrote in their official motion to dismiss submitted to the court on Monday. “The Presidential immunity doctrine, the Presidential Transition Act, and the Supremacy Clause all require that result, and they require it immediately.”
Trump attorneys, in the beginning of their argument for dismissal, invoked President Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks alongside his attorney Todd Blanche as he arrives for his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 30, 2024, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
“Yesterday, in issuing a 10-year pardon to Hunter Biden that covers any and all crimes whether charged or uncharged, President Biden asserted that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ and ‘treated differently,’” they wrote. “President Biden argued that ‘raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.’”
Trump attorneys said Biden’s “comments amounted to an extraordinary condemnation of President Biden’s own DOJ.”
“This is the same DOJ that coordinated and oversaw the politically-motivated, election-interference witch hunts targeting President Trump by disgraced Special Counsel Jack Smith, the other biased prosecutors in Smith’s Special Counsel’s Office (“SCO”), and others. This is the same DOJ that sent Matthew Colangelo to DA Bragg to help unfairly target President Trump in this empty and lawless case,” they wrote. “Since DA Bragg took office, he has engaged in ‘precisely the type of political theater’ that President Biden condemned.”
Trump spokesman and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung said after the filing, “President Trump and his legal team have filed a powerhouse motion to dismiss once and for all the unconstitutional and politically motivated Manhattan DA Hoax. This lawless case should have never been brought, and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed, as President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process, and execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this, or any other, Witch Hunt.”
“Today’s motion provides every possible chance for Judge Merchan do the right thing and end what remains of this charade immediately, rightfully allowing our country to unite behind President Trump for the betterment of all Americans.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg arrives at Daniel Penny’s trial following a lunch break at the Manhattan Supreme Criminal Court building in New York City on Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
Trump attorneys said New York v. Trump is “based on a contrived, defective, and unprecedented legal theory relating to 2017 entries in documents that were maintained hundreds of miles away from the White House where President Trump was running the country.”
“There are no ‘aggravating factors’ here, other than those arising from DANY’s misconduct,” they wrote. “Thus, this case should never have been brought, particularly during a period when DA Bragg’s failure to protect this City from pervasive violent crime frightens, threatens, and harms New Yorkers on a daily basis.”
Trump attorneys also said that the case “would never have been brought were it not for President Trump’s political views, the transformative national movement established under his leadership, and the political threat that he poses to entrenched, corrupt politicians in Washington, D.C. and beyond.”
Trump lawyers said that “wrongly continuing proceedings in this failed lawfare case disrupts President Trump’s transition efforts and his preparations to wield the full Article II executive power authorized by the Constitution pursuant to the overwhelming national mandate granted to him by the American people on November 5, 2024.”
Trump attorneys, citing the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision which ruled that presidents have immunity from official acts, said the case threatens the functioning of the federal government.
“Local elected officials such as DA Bragg have no valid basis to cause such disruptions, which also violate the Supremacy Clause,” they wrote. “Consequently, the federal Constitution is an absolute “legal impediment” to further proceedings…and the case must be immediately dismissed.”
Trump attorneys said that Bragg’s “wrongful prosecution threatens ‘enduring consequences upon the balanced power structure of our Republic’ and the type of ‘factional strife’ that President Biden decried in yesterday’s blanket pardon announcement.”
They said the Special Counsel’s Office “has been forced to concede.”
FILE – Judge Juan M. Merchan poses in his chambers in New York, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
TRUMP REQUESTS NY JUDGE OVERTURN GUILTY VERDICT, INDICTMENT AFTER SCOTUS IMMUNITY RULING
Last month, a federal judge, upon Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request, dismissed charges against Trump in his 2020 election interference case. Smith also rescinded his appeal in his classified records case against Trump — a case that was tossed in July by a federal judge in Florida who ruled Smith was appointed unlawfully as special counsel.
Bragg, last month, requested to Judge Juan Merchan that the case be stayed until the end of Trump’s second term, but Trump attorneys noted that the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department concluded that “the categorical prohibition on the federal indictment of a sitting president…even if the case were held in abeyance…applies to this situation.”
They wrote that Bragg’s “ridiculous suggestion that they could simply resume proceedings after President Trump leaves Office, more than a decade after they commenced their investigation in 2018, is not an option.”
BRAGG CASE ‘EFFECTIVELY OVER’ IN ‘MAJOR VICTORY,’ TRUMP OFFICIALS SAY
Donald Trump waves to supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree stemming from the yearslong investigation related to alleged hush money payments run by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance initiated the investigation, and Bragg prosecuted Trump.
After an unprecedented six-week trial in New York City, a jury found the president guilty on all counts.