Left: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives to speak at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Monday, March 4, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell). Right: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg gestures while speaking during a news conference Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II).
Manhattan’s top prosecutor wants to continue his case against President-elect Donald Trump, a letter motion filed Tuesday says.
In the filing, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said his office opposes efforts to dismiss the hush-money conviction against the 45th and 47th president.
Bragg’s office is asking New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to quickly “set a motion schedule for Defendant’s forthcoming motion to dismiss, which the People intend to oppose.”
The letter motion previews the arguments for and against dismissing the conviction as a knockdown, drag-out battle between “competing constitutional interests” and professes a need to preserve “the integrity of the criminal justice system.”
Keen to the concept of presidential immunity, Bragg says the doctrine is not — and cannot be — a method used to “forever thwart the public’s interest in enforcing its criminal laws.”
In May, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of New York Penal Law Section 175.10, a felony offense that makes it a crime to falsify business records with the intent to commit or conceal another crime or aid in said commission or concealment.
Since then, legal wrangling – based on the election and the U.S. Supreme Court creating the concept of presidential immunity for criminal prosecutions – kicked the sentencing can down the road.
Earlier this month, the defendant suggested his recent electoral victory means that can should be given the entire boot.
“The stay, and dismissal, are necessary to avoid unconstitutional impediments to President Trump’s ability to govern,” Trump’s attorneys, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, wrote in a letter dated Nov. 8.
Bragg, for his part, does not oppose the stay – and even proposes that idea as one of many “non-dismissal options.”
The DA’s office says one way to balance the various interests at stake in the case is “deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term.”
“The People deeply respect the Office of the President, are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency and acknowledge that Defendant’s inauguration will raise unprecedented legal questions,” the letter motion reads. “We also deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system.”
Notably, Bragg’s office is also specifically asking for the case to be put on hold – in a sense.
The letter from Trump’s defense team was not a formal motion to dismiss, Bragg’s office notes. Rather, it was correspondence between attorneys hoping to check temperatures and get on the same page. And, partially, the parties did agree.
Bragg’s office says they anticipate Trump will soon file a motion to dismiss the case and urges the judge to allow such a filing. Further, the DA’s office wants timelines in that litigation to be relatively tight at the trial court level – asking Merchan to set a Dec. 9 deadline for the government to respond to the defense motion.
“In addition to intending to file a motion to dismiss, Defendant has also expressed his intent to seek a stay of further proceedings,” the Tuesday motion goes on. “In response to any such motion, the People expect that we would not oppose Defendant’s request for a stay of further proceedings pending this Court’s disposition of a motion to dismiss.”
A sentencing hearing in the case was slated for Nov. 26.
Last week, Merchan paused proceedings related to extant immunity issues – while technically leaving the sentencing date on the calendar – by directing prosecutors to advance their “view of appropriate steps going forward.” In that order, Merchan granted a joint request from prosecutors and the defense to pause deadlines in the case until Tuesday.
The judge had been set to decide whether Trump’s convictions will stand in light of the high court’s summer immunity decision.
Within hours of that landmark opinion, the once-and-future president’s attorneys moved to have the hush-money case verdict annulled by arguing that prosecutors improperly used several pieces of evidence that fall under the immunity ruling.
Bragg’s office says there will likely be additional immunity arguments introduced by the defense due to Trump winning the election. That, the DA says, is even more reason to put the sentencing portion of the case on ice for the next several years.
“Defendant’s stated plan to pursue immediate dismissal and file interlocutory appeals will likely lead to a stay of proceedings in any event; staying proceedings now until this Court’s resolution of the motion to dismiss would thus avoid unnecessary litigation,” the letter motion goes on. [P]roceeding to sentencing now would not avoid the new immunity question that Defendant intends to raise.”
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