attorneys for Donald Trump called the judge presiding over the sentencing falsifying business records Rejecting the impeachment against the president-elect, citing the language used by President Joe Biden when he announced that he was pardoning his son.
“Yesterday in the release a 10-year amnesty for Hunter Biden President Biden claimed his son was “selectively and unfairly prosecuted” and “treated differently,” covering any and all crimes charged or not.
“President Biden claimed that ‘crude politics have infected this process and it has led to a miscarriage of justice.’ Those comments amounted to an extraordinary censure of President Biden’s own DOJ,” the filing continued, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “engaged in ‘the very kind of political theater’ that President Biden deplores.”
Bragg’s office prosecuted Trump for allegedly falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to elderly movie star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential election. In May, the jury found Trump everyone is guilty 34 counts. Judge Juan Merchan has an indefinite period He postponed Trump’s sentence given his election victory and arguments that Trump is protected by presidential immunity.
The DA’s office said it did not oppose the postponement.
In their complaint, Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove cited the protection of presidential immunity as a reason for Mercha to dismiss the indictment, while also calling the indictment politically motivated and legally problematic.
“This case is based on a fabricated, flawed and unprecedented legal theory about 2017 memos stored hundreds of miles away from the White House, where President Trump runs the country,” he said, adding that “this case has never been brought.”
The DA’s “intrusions into the institution of the Presidency violate the doctrine of Presidential immunity because they threaten the functioning of the federal government,” the document states.
The lawyers also took aim at a suggestion by the DA’s office that the case could be stayed until Trump finishes his term in office. “More than a decade after the investigation began in 2018, the ludicrous suggestion that they could simply continue the trial after President Trump leaves office is not an option,” it said.
Another reason the case should be thrown out is Trump’s “extraordinary service” to the country, the petition claims. “Trump’s civic and financial contributions to this City and Nation are too numerous to count,” he says.
They also urged the judge to dismiss the indictment “in the interest of justice” because the prosecution threatens “lasting consequences for the balanced power structure of our republic and the factional strife that President Biden criticized in yesterday’s pardon announcement.”
“As President Biden said yesterday, ‘Enough is enough,'” he added.
Blanche and Bove’s filing also prompts a series of Justice Department investigations into Trump’s prosecutions, which have been suspended since his re-election.
“This is the same DOJ that coordinated and oversaw the politically motivated, election interference witch hunts targeting President Trump,” he said.
While Trump has often complained about the Justice Department in the past, Blanche and Bowen’s testimony in the filing is notable because Trump has said he intends to nominate both. top jobs in the department.
The appeal calls on the judge to recuse himself from the case and, if he disagrees and plans to impose a sentence, give Trump “a two-week stay to provide a reasonable opportunity to be freed from federal punishment.”
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the filing a “powerhouse proposal” that “provides every chance for Judge Mercha to do the right thing and end the rest of this mess immediately.”
The DA’s office has until Dec. 9 to respond.
Bragg’s office declined to comment on the filing.