President-elect Donald Trump is seeking the “immediate dismissal” of the New York hush money case, in which a jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of business falsification, citing the “uniquely destabilizing” effects of sentencing an incoming president.
“As DA Bragg engages in his own election campaign, [the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office] appears to not yet be ready to dismiss this politically-motivated and fatally flawed case, which is what is mandated by the law and will happen as justice takes its course,” lawyers for Trump wrote in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan on Wednesday.
Trump’s response comes one day after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg informed Merchan that he does not oppose a stay in in post-trial procedures, indicating his office would not oppose a delay to his sentencing on Nov. 26. But Bragg’s office made clear they do not believe the case should be dismissed, and even floated the option of sentencing Trump after his second term concludes in 2029.
Defense lawyers pointed to special counsel Jack Smith’s recent plans to step down and dismiss the two federal criminal indictments against Trump as grounds that the state criminal case — in which Trump was accused of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels in the run up to his 2016 presidential election — should also be tossed out.
Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and denies Daniels’s accusations that an affair occurred between them.
“However, DOJ is reportedly preparing to dismiss the federal cases against President Trump, and will report its final decision to federal courts on December 2, 2024. As in those cases, dismissal is necessary here,” Trump attorneys wrote.
Merchan has still not wiped the Nov. 26 sentencing date from the schedule, but it will be up to him to first decide Trump’s latest motions to dismiss the case.
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Trump tried and failed several occasions to dismiss the case before the trial concluded, including efforts to remove the case to federal court in search of a more favorable venue, given Manhattan’s Democratic-leaning demographics.
The president-elect even suggested on multiple occasions that Merchan could not adjudicate the trial without bias in light of his daughter Lauren Merchan’s work for a political consulting group that does work on behalf of numerous Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). Merchan denied those efforts to dismiss the case as well.