(Attorneys for President-elect Donald Trump are working to clear out pending lawfare cases against him before he takes office in January.
Federal prosecutors have already moved to end two criminal cases—the election interference case in Washington D.C. and the classified documents case in Florida.
That leaves the porn-star case in New York and the racketeering charges in Georgia.
This week, Trump’s defense team asked New York Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss his case prior to conviction, despite the guilty verdict of a warped Manhattan jury on charges that had never before been brought under the circumstances.
In an 80-page dismissal motion, Trump’s team said prosecutors, led by George Soros-backed District Attorney Alvin Bragg, should never have filed charges. The motion cited President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his son Hunter, in which the president claimed his son was unfairly targeted for political reasons.
Trump has repeatedly said the criminal cases against him were coordinated by his political opponents. His attorneys have continued those assertions in court motions.
“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’s defense attorneys wrote.
“And this 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,” they added.
In May, Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records for disguising payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels as legal costs ahead of the 2016 election. Daniels claimed the two had a sexual relationship 10 years prior to Trump’s first presidential run, although he has denied it.
The payments were made indirectly through his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, who later turned against him after his offices were raided as part of the equally dubious Mueller investigation into Russia collusion.
Under New York state law, falsifying business records in the first degree is a Class E felony with a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
However, since Trump’s case had federal jurisdiction, not state jurisdiction, it initially was investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as a misdemeanor after the federal Justice Department determined they could not meet the evidentiary threshold.
By time Bragg reopened it, it already had surpassed the statute of limitations for a federal case. In order to morph it into a state case, Bragg and Merchan essentially had to redefine the law on multiple occasions throughout the trial.
Things were further complicated by the case’s reliance on evidence culled from Trump after he had become president that was arguably connected with his official executive duties.
A Supreme Court decision determined after the jury verdict had been issued that Trump had broad immunity for any official acts, forcing Merchan to delay the sentencing and formal conviction in the case.
Ultimately, voters had the opportunity to weigh in by re-electing Trump as president.
“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’s attorneys wrote.
They said the presidential immunity doctrine, the Presidential Transition Act and the Supremacy Clause required that the case be tossed immediately.
In Georgia, meanwhile, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis faced growing pressure regarding the election interference case against Trump.
Trump’s team likewise called on that case to be tossed.
“A sitting president is completely immune from indictment or any criminal process, state or federal,” Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow wrote in the latest Georgia filing. “President Trump respectfully submits that upon reaching that decision, this Court should dismiss his appeal for lack of jurisdiction with directions to the trial court to immediately dismiss the indictment against President Trump.”
Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris last month to win another term in the White House. Trump’s inauguration is set for Jan. 20, 2025.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
