NEW YORK -- Donald Trump's lawyers are urging the judge in his New York hush money case to overturn his conviction and dismiss the case in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent ruling on presidential immunity.
The former president's lawyers laid out their case for reversing the guilty verdict in a court filing made public Thursday, denouncing Manhattan prosecutors for rushing to try Trump while the high court was still considering his immunity claims. Trump was convicted in May of falsifying records to cover up a potential sex scandal. He is the first ex-president convicted of a crime.
Trump's lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove urged the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, to vacate the jury's verdict and dismiss the indictment, which would prevent prosecutors from retrying the case. Merchan has said he'll rule on the defence's requests on Sept. 6 and will sentence Trump on Sept. 18, "if such is still necessary." Prosecutors have until July 24 to respond to the defence's arguments.
"Rather than wait for the Supreme Court's guidance, the prosecutors scoffed with hubris at President Trump's immunity motions and insisted on rushing to trial," Blanche and Bove wrote. Addressing Merchan directly, they said: "Your Honor now has the authority to address these injustices, and the court is duty-bound to do so in light of the Supreme Court's decision."
The Manhattan district attorney's office declined comment.
The Supreme Court released its immunity decision on July 1, giving broad protections to presidents and insulating them from prosecution for official acts. It also restricted prosecutors from citing any official acts as evidence in trying to prove a president's unofficial actions violated the law.
Hours later, Trump's lawyers wrote a letter to Merchan asking him to set aside the verdict and to delay Trump's sentencing, which had been scheduled for Thursday. The Supreme Court did not define what constitutes an official act, leaving that to lower courts.
Trump's trial began April 15. The Supreme Court didn't hear arguments on his immunity claims until April 25.
Trump was convicted on May 30 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.
Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump has repeatedly denied that claim, saying at his June 27 debate with President Joe Biden, "I didn't have sex with a porn star." He has vowed to appeal the conviction but would not be able to do so until he is sentenced.
Prosecutors said the Daniels payment was part of a broader scheme to buy the silence of people who might have gone public during the campaign with embarrassing stories alleging Trump had extramarital sex.
Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels and was later reimbursed by Trump. Prosecutors said Cohen -- with Trump's knowledge -- disguised the reimbursements by submitting monthly invoices for retainer payments as Trump's personal lawyer. Trump's company logged the payments to Cohen as legal expenses.
Trump was convicted after a seven-week trial that featured testimony from 22 witnesses, including Cohen and Daniels. Trump declined to testify on his own behalf.
Trump denied any wrongdoing and said all the stories were false.
Trump lawyers argue that jurors shouldn't have been allowed to hear about some matters including his conversations with then-White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, testimony from another aide about how Trump got personal mail in the Oval Office, and tweets that he sent while president. Some of the checks and invoices at issue in the case were also from his time as president.
Blanche and Bove also cited alleged conversations about the president's pardon power. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges pertaining to the hush money payment and unrelated crimes as part of an investigation into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, told jurors he had seen Trump talking on television "about, potentially, pre-pardoning everybody" and directed his lawyers to explore the possibility.
The defence also complained about some testimony it characterized as veering into "national security matters" -- an aide's general description of Trump sometimes bringing various documents from the White House onto Air Force One and Marine One and a mention that some calls to the White House get routed to secure lines in the Situation Room.
Trump's lawyers wrote that prosecutors tried "to assign a criminal motive" to some actions Trump took while in office -- by arguing, for example, that some of his 2018 tweets were part of a "pressure campaign" to keep Cohen from turning on him.
The Supreme Court's decision "forecloses inquiry into those motives," the defence argued.
Jurors were shown 2018 tweets in which the then-president at first warmly portrayed Cohen as someone who wouldn't "flip," but later as someone fabricating stories to save himself. The change in tone came after Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations and said Trump directed the hush money payments, and prosecutors portrayed the tweets as efforts to strong-arm Cohen to stay loyal and then punish him when he didn't.
In Thursday's filing, Trump's lawyers countered that the tweets were "communications with the American people regarding matters of public concern bearing on President Trump's credibility as the commander-in-chief."
The question of what jurors are entitled to hear about a president's conduct divided even the conservative members of the Supreme Court responsible for the majority opinion.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in a separate concurrence, wrote that the Constitution does not require juries to be blinded "to the circumstances surrounding conduct for which Presidents can be held liable" and suggested that it would needlessly "hamstring" a prosecutor's case to exclude from trial "any mention of the official act" in question.
Trump's lawyers had previously invoked presidential immunity in a failed bid last year to get the hush money case moved from state court to federal court.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected Trump's claim that allegations in the hush money indictment involved official duties, writing in July 2023, "The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the president -- a cover-up of an embarrassing event."
"Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president's official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president's official duties," Hellerstein added.
Later, Trump's lawyers sought to delay the hush money trial until the Supreme Court ruled on his immunity claim. Merchan denied the request, declaring it untimely because it came well after a deadline for pretrial motions.
Trump's lawyers never raised presidential immunity as a defence in the hush money trial, but they tried unsuccessfully to prevent prosecutors from showing the jury evidence from his time in office.
The ongoing immunity fight and ensuing sentencing delay have spared Trump the damage of a potential prison sentence, probation, fine or other punishments just days before Republicans are set to formally nominate him as their presidential candidate at the party's convention next week in Milwaukee.
The delay avoids the potential split screen of Trump being sentenced while Democrats continued to debate President Joe Biden's viability as a reelection candidate after his dismal debate performance last month.
Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation, a fine or a conditional discharge that would require Trump to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment.
If Trump were to be sentenced to jail, he could be allowed to remain free while he appeals. Because it is a state case involving state-level charges tried in a state court, Trump would not be able to pardon himself if he were to be elected president again. Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes.
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Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
