() Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Tuesday that his office would oppose President-elect Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss his felony conviction in New York.
Bragg said that despite plans to oppose Trump’s motion, his office would agree to hit pause on the proceedings pending the judge’s decision on Trump’s motion to dismiss.
Yet he insisted Tuesday that the case could remain on pause through the end of Trump’s second term.
“Given the need to balance competing constitutional interests, consideration must be given to various non-dismissal options that may address any concerns raised by the pendency of a post-trial criminal proceeding during the presidency, such as deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term,” Bragg wrote in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan.
The George Soros-backed district attorney, who used a novel solution when filing his charges to circumvent the statute of limitations on the 8-year-old case, suggested the absence of case law for such unprecedented circumstances played to the benefit of the leftist prosecutor, who campaigned on a “Get Trump” platform.
“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 and that is based on unofficial conduct for which the defendant is also not immune,” Bragg wrote.
“Rather, existing law suggests that the Court must balance competing constitutional interests and proceed ‘in a manner that preserves both the independence of the Executive and the integrity of the criminal justice system.’ ”
Contrary to Bragg’s claim, the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees defendants the right to a speedy trial.
Despite Bragg’s attempt to drag out the conviction process—leaving Trump in legal limbo should he decide, for example, to investigate Bragg and Merchan or to exert any form of political pressure on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (who has the power to pardon him)—Trump communications director Steven Cheung declared it a triumph for the defense and an admission of defeat from the D.A.
“This is a total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American People who elected him in a landslide,” Cheung said in a statement.
“The Manhattan DA has conceded that this Witch Hunt cannot continue,” he continued. “The lawless case is now stayed, and President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all.”
In late May, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on all counts in the case alleging he directed his attorney, Michael Cohen, to falsify business records by designating payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy bunny Karen McDougal as “legal expenses.”
Both women claimed they had romantic affairs with the then-GOP candidate roughly 10 years prior, when he was early in his marriage to future First Lady Melania Trump.
Donald Trump has adamantly denied that the relationships were sexual and maintains his innocence. If, as prosecutors claim, the payoffs constituted campaign expenditures, they would parallel similar offenses by Barack Obama, former Sen. John Edwards, and both Bill and Hillary Clinton, for which the candidates all received slaps on the wrist and small fines.
Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree—a Class E felony with a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
Trump and his attorneys already sought dismissal of the case based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, noting that the prosecution built much of its case on actions Trump took while already in the White House that were considered inadmissible.
In July, the court ruled that presidents and former presidents have absolute immunity for actions related to core constitutional powers and presumptive immunity for official actions. The ruling said the president has no immunity for unofficial conduct.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
