President-elect Trump’s defense team asked the judge presiding over his New York hush-money case, Juan Merchan, for permission to file a motion to dismiss the charges, the verdict and the entire case. 

“Continuing with this case would be ‘uniquely destabilizing’ and threaten to ‘hamstring the whole operation of the government apparatus, both in foreign and in domestic affairs’,” attorneys Todd Blanche, whom Trump has nominated for the powerful role of deputy attorney general, and Emil Bove, whom he intends to appoint as principal associate deputy attorney general, wrote in their letter to Judge Merchan on Wednesday morning. 

“We request a December 20, 2024 deadline to file this brief,” the attorneys added.  

The so-called pre-motion letter comes one day after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who brought the case against Trump, made clear that despite Trump’s return to the White House, he intends to comply with the jury verdict and sentence Trump, though not while he is president-elect and president. To that end, Mr. Bragg sent a letter to the judge asking to freeze the verdict and delay sentencing until after Trump’s presidency in 2029, as the Sun reported.      

Mr. Bragg scored a historic guilty verdict against Trump on May 30, when a jury found the now President-elect guilty of 34 felony charges of falsification of business records in an alleged scheme to interfere with the 2016 election.

At the heart of the case was a $130,000 hush-money payment that Trump’s then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in 2016 to buy her silence about her claim that she had a single sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006. The prosecution accused Trump of directing Cohen to wire the money to Ms. Clifford and then disguising his reimbursement to Cohen as a legal fee. Trump denies all charges and says he never had sex with Ms. Clifford.

After a jury found Trump guilty of the charges at the end of May, the judge scheduled the sentence hearing for July 11. But then, on July 1, the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark decision that former presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts committed in service of their presidency. Hours after the ruling was published, Trump’s defense attorneys urged Judge Merchan to hold off on the sentencing until he had reviewed their argument that the evidence and witness testimony used during the trial stemmed from the time Trump was living in the White House and serving the nation as the 45th president, thus, granting him immunity from the charges.  

The judge agreed to review the defense’s motion and adjourned the sentence hearing to September 18. He had not ruled on the defense’s motion yet, when on August 14, Trump’s team implored the court to adjourn the sentencing again and to push it until after the election, arguing that the sentencing of Trump, who was running for president, would influence the opinion of voters. Judge Merchan agreed and rescheduled the sentencing for a second time to November 26.

Now Trump’s attorneys argue that the judge should allow them to file their motion to dismiss the case by December 20, and to consider that motion even before deciding on their previous motion, which argues for dismissal based on the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity. 

“The Court must address these new issues, and dismiss the case, prior to issuing a decision on the previously filed immunity doctrine and Supremacy clause.” The attorneys wrote. 

Their opponent, Mr. Bragg, agreed, in his letter on Tuesday that Trump’s upcoming presidency complicated the matter, and was willing to freeze the verdict until 2029, but certainly not willing to throw out the case. “No current law establishes that a president’s temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a post–trial criminal proceeding that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution,” his legal team wrote.  

Mr. Blanche and Mr. Bove criticized Mr. Bragg, pointing out that he is involved “in his own election campaign.” In 2021 Mr. Bragg ran on the campaign promise to “hold Trump accountable.” The New York Post reported that he is favored to win re-election next year as “No Democrat has emerged thus far to challenge Bragg in the June 25 Democratic primary.”  

The defense attorneys wrote that Mr. Bragg “appears not to be ready to dismiss this politically-motivated and fatally flawed case… which will happen as justice takes its course.” Mr. Blanche and Mr. Bove are both in line for influential positions in the Department of Justice. But the Justice Department has no jurisdiction over state-level cases. 

The defense further argued that the unresolved hush-money case presents a “real burden” to the president-elect and that under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 any such burden should be removed as the law established “the mechanisms to facilitate an orderly and peaceful transfer of power.”  Any pending charges and sentencing dates would hinder the president-elect, his attorneys basically argue, from performing his duties to ensure his incoming administration has everything it needs to operate. 

According to the Constitution, a sitting president cannot be prosecuted for a crime. The defense attorneys argued that those principles should be extended to a president in transition to ensure he can prepare himself and his cabinet for a smooth assumption of the imperium.  

“The Constitution forbids ‘placing into the hands of a single prosecutor and grand jury the practical power to interfere with the ability popularly elected  president to carry out his constitutional functions,’” the attorneys wrote. “Just as a sitting president is completely immune from any criminal process, so is President Trump as President-elect.”    

If the judge should deny the defense’s request to file their new motion by December 20, the attorneys further wrote, he should at least give them adequate time to appeal any rulings he makes. 

“To the extent that the court plans to deny any aspect of the relief requested herein, including by moving forward with other rulings, President Trump requests that the Court stay the implementation of the ruling so that President Trump has adequate time to pursue adequate review.”           

In a final plea, the defense wrote that the judge should dismiss the case immediately based on the presidential election results of November 5. 

“On November 5, 2024, the Nation’s People issued a mandate that supersedes the political motivations of DANY’s ‘People’” the attorneys concluded in their letter, referring to the district attorney, whom they accuse of political lawfare. “This case must be dismissed immediately.” 

Judge Merchan, who faces an unprecedented decision as this country has never before had a president elect facing a criminal sentencing, has as of  yet responded neither to prosecution’s nor to the defense’s letters, and has not yet signaled if he intends to dismiss, freeze or uphold the guilty verdict. Trump, who has called the judge “crooked” and “conflicted,” demanded several times (unsuccessfully) that Judge Merchan recuse himself.