President-elect Donald Trump’s legal team formally requested Monday that a judge dismiss his hush money conviction, arguing that continuing the case would cause unconstitutional disruptions to the presidency.
In a filing made public Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers urged Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan to drop the case, citing the extraordinary circumstances surrounding Trump’s impending return to office. Trump’s attorneys began their dismissal argument by referencing Biden’s recent decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden.
“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 stated. “President Biden argued that ‘raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.’”
The legal team claimed Biden’s remarks constituted “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 argued. “Since DA Bragg took office, he has engaged in ‘precisely the type of political theater’ that President Biden condemned.”
Prosecutors have until December 9 to respond. They have indicated they will oppose dismissal but are open to delaying sentencing until after Trump’s term ends in 2029.
Judge Merchan previously halted proceedings after Trump’s election victory last month, postponing sentencing, which had been set for late November. He delayed ruling on Trump’s earlier request to dismiss the case on immunity grounds.
If Merchan grants the dismissal, it would erase Trump’s conviction, removing the potential of a criminal record or prison sentence. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to win the presidency.
The judge could uphold the conviction and proceed with sentencing, delay the case until Trump leaves office, or await a federal appeals court decision on Trump’s separate effort to move the case out of state court. No timetable for a decision has been set.
