Trump argues New York conviction ‘must be vacated’ after Supreme Court immunity decision
By Kara Scannell, Lauren del Valle and Jeremy Herb, CNN
(CNN) — Donald Trump urged the judge in his New York hush money case to dismiss his conviction in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity last month, according to a new court filing.
Trump’s lawyers argued in a 55-page filing that the jury’s guilty verdict should be vacated because the district attorney’s office relied on evidence at trial related to Trump’s official acts as president, which Trump’s lawyers asserted should not have been permitted in light of the Supreme Court’s recent immunity decision.
“In order to vindicate the Presidential immunity doctrine, and protect the interests implicated by its underpinnings, the jury’s verdicts must be vacated and the Indictment dismissed,” Trump’s attorneys wrote to Judge Juan Merchan.
The Manhattan district attorney “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,” Trump’s attorneys wrote. “Much of the unconstitutional official-acts evidence concerned actions taken pursuant to ‘core’ Executive power for which ‘absolute’ immunity applies.”
The district attorney’s office declined to comment for this story.
Last week, Merchan postponed Trump’s sentencing to allow Trump to file his motion to dismiss the guilty verdict. The district attorney’s office will respond later this month, and Merchan said he will decide the matter in September, with a potential sentencing scheduled on September 18, if necessary.
Merchan had initially set Thursday as the day that Trump would be sentenced following his May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, when Trump became the first former US president to be convicted of a felony. But that schedule was scrapped after the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity last month, in which the court’s conservative wing found that presidents have absolute immunity for core official acts.
In their filing, Trump’s lawyers pointed to testimony at trial – including from White House officials Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout– they argued should not have come before the jury, as well as tweets he sent while president.
All of Hicks’s testimony concerning events in 2018, when she was serving as the White House Communications Director, concerned official acts based on core Article II authority for which President Trump is entitled to absolute immunity,” Trump’s attorneys argued. “Trump specifically forbids prosecutors from offering ‘testimony’ from a President’s ‘advisers’ for the purpose of ‘probing the official act.’”
The filing says Westerhout was forced to testify about national security matters and her work for Trump, calling prosecutors’ questioning “invasive.”
“This invasive compelled testimony included information regarding President Trump’s official-capacity ‘work habits,’ ‘preferences,’ ‘relationships and contacts,’ and ‘social media’ practices at the White House,” Trump’s lawyers argued.
Trump’s attorneys pointed to a March 2018 text message that Westerhout sent Hicks while they were White House advisers working on Trump’s behalf: “Hey- the president wants to know if you called David pecker again.”
In addition, Trump’s lawyers wrote that Trump, while president, used his Twitter account as “one of the White House’s main vehicles for conducting official business.”
“More broadly, permitting prosecutors to use a President’s public statements on matters of public concern in criminal proceedings would chill the President’s willingness and ability to communicate with the public,” they wrote. “That would result in an impermissible ‘intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch’ and the ‘enfeebling of the Presidency.’”
Trump’s attorneys also criticized the district attorney’s office for not waiting for the Supreme Court before taking the case to trial.
“At bottom, the ‘pressure campaign’ theory turned on DANY’s efforts to assign a criminal motive to actions that President Trump took in 2018 as the Commander in Chief responsible for the entire Executive Branch,” his lawyers wrote. The Manhattan district attorney “urged this 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.”
Following the Supreme Court ruling, Trump’s lawyers filed a letter earlier this month to the judge asking permission to file the motion to set aside the verdict.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team responded earlier this month by asserting that Trump’s argument was “without merit,” but also that they did not oppose postponing the sentencing while Merchan decided Trump’s motion.
The judge announced that same day that he would allow the two sides to file briefs this month and that he would rule on the matter on September 6. Trump’s sentencing would be postponed until September 18, Merchan wrote – “if such is still necessary.”
The district attorney’s reply to Trump is due on July 24.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
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