In a brief filed on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers provided numerous reasons why the New York business records case brought against their client should be dismissed and at the top of that list were reasons President Joe Biden gave in the pardon of his son Hunter Biden.
In the introduction to their 80-page motion to dismiss, attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove quoted directly from Biden’s Sunday pardon announcement which said his son Hunter had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” and ” treated differently.”
Further, “President Biden argued that ‘raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,’” they noted in the document to presiding Judge Juan Merchan.
“Since [Manhattan District Attorney Alvin] Bragg took office, he has engaged in ‘precisely the type of political theater’ that President Biden condemned,” the attorneys argued. “These comments amounted to an extraordinary condemnation of President Biden’s own [Department of Justice].”
Blanche and Bove asserted that not only did the DOJ politically target Trump in the two cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith, “This is the same DOJ that sent Matthew Colangelo to DA Bragg to help unfairly target President Trump in this empty and lawless case.”
“This case 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,” the lawyers wrote.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records in 2017 in order to cover up a $130,000 in hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels by then-Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen prior to the 2016 election.
Normally, falsifying of business records under the statute would have been a misdemeanor offense, but Bragg’s office up-charged the violations by saying they were meant to cover up an underlying crime, but never specified exactly what the crime was at trial. Bragg suggested when indicting Trump that it was an illegal campaign contribution by Cohen.
Cohen pleaded guilty to that crime and others in 2018, but election law experts believe that was his choice and likely would not have been convicted of it if the case went to trial. The DOJ apparently wanted Cohen’s guilty plea with an eye on targeting Trump down the way.
Should the charges against Trump be dismissed?
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Nondisclosure agreements like the one Daniels entered into are generally legal and created all the time.
In April, George Washington Law School professor Jonathan Turley called Braggs’ prosecution of Trump a “Frankenstein case,” saying, “They took a dead misdemeanor. They attached it to a dead alleged federal felony and zapped it back into life.”
“So many of us are just amazed to watch this actually walk into court because it’s not a recognizable crime that any of us have seen,” he added.
Blanche and Bove wrote in their motion to dismiss, “[T]his 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.”
“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,” they continued.
The lawyers cited the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which they argued bars local prosecutors from creating a legal impediment to him carrying out his duties.
“DA Bragg ran for office based on his promise to continue targeting President Trump. DA Bragg’s persistent efforts to make good on that promise while conditions in the City deteriorated, coupled with his improper extrajudicial statements after the charges were filed, created enormous appearances of impropriety in DANY’s front office,” Blanche and Bove wrote.
They concluded writing, “As President Biden put it yesterday, ‘Enough is enough’… This case, which should never have been brought, must now be dismissed.”
Blanche and Bove provided numerous other legal arguments why the case should be dismissed, including testimony allowed at trial by Daniels and Cohen, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity.
The lawyers signaled they are prepared to take their case to federal court, if Merchan should decide to rule against Trump.
The Hill reported that the judge is expected to announce a decision on whether he will set aside Trump’s verdict and dismiss the charges next week.
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