Former President Donald Trump moved to have his New York felony conviction dismissed Thursday in light of the Supreme Court’s decision that presidents have immunity for official actions.
Lawyers for Trump argued in a motion that New York Judge Juan Merchan should dismiss Trump’s conviction in the hush money case where he was accused of falsifying business records because the prosecution relied on evidence that shouldn’t have been admissible for the jury to consider. The motion comes after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that Trump’s assertion of presidential immunity to shield himself from federal prosecution is valid for official acts.
“No President of the United States has ever been treated as unfairly and unlawfully as District Attorney Bragg has acted towards President Trump in connection with the biased investigation, extraordinarily delayed charging decision, and baseless prosecution that give rise to this motion,” the filing said.
The lawyers added that the motion to vacate the jury’s verdict was based on the doctrine of presidential immunity set forth by the Supreme Court and the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
According to the filing, the New York County District Attorney’s Office (DANY) urged the court “to front-run the Supreme Court on a federal constitutional issue with grave implications for the operation of the federal government and the relationships between state and federal officials. The record is clear: DANY was wrong, very wrong.”
On July 1, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States that the former president could not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers and was entitled to presumptive immunity for official acts. Trump’s lawyers pointed to this ruling, saying that the jury was unduly influenced by evidence that should not have been used during the trial.
“Under Trump, DANY violated the Presidential immunity doctrine and the Supremacy Clause by relying on evidence relating to President Trump’s official acts in 2017 and 2018 to unfairly prejudice President Trump in this unprecedented and unfounded prosecution relating to purported business records,” the filing said.
The official-acts evidence was used to “bolster” testimony from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who was a key witness for the prosecution, according to the filing.
“Because of the implications for the institution of the Presidency, the use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution that tainted DANY’s grand jury proceedings as well as the trial. These transgressions resulted in the type of deeply prejudicial error that strikes at the core of the government’s function and cannot be addressed through harmless-error analysis,” the filing said.
Trump faces sentencing for the conviction in September as the court evaluates whether the Supreme Court decision impacts the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg or not.
