Former President Trump on Thursday evening formally requested Judge Merchan overturn his guilty verdict in New York v. Trump after the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have immunity for official acts.
Trump was found guilty in an unprecedented criminal trial last month on all counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, following a six-week trial stemming from Bragg’s investigation.
The formal motion was filed Thursday evening.
‘The Court should dismiss the indictment and vacate the jury’s verdicts based on violations of the Presidential immunity doctrine and the Supremacy Clause,’ Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche wrote in the motion.
Trump signaled last week that he would move to overturn his criminal conviction in the Manhattan case after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a former president has substantial immunity for official acts committed while in office.
In the formal motion Thursday evening, Blanche pointed to the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, and argued that certain evidence of ‘official acts’ should not have been admitted during the trial.
Specifically, Blanche argued that testimony from former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks; former Special Assistant to the President Madeleine Westerhout; testimony regarding The Special Counsel’s Office and Congressional Investigations and the pardon power; testimony regarding President Trump’s response to FEC Inquiries; his presidential Twitter posts and other related testimony was impermissably admitted during trial.
Trump attorneys also pointed to Trump’s disclosures to the Office of Government Ethics as president.
Blanche said that ‘official-acts evidence’ that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg presented to the grand jury ‘contravened the holding in Trump because Presidents ‘cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution,” the motion reads. ‘The Presidential immunity doctrine recognized in Trump pertains to all ‘criminal proceedings,’ including grand jury proceedings when a prosecutor ‘seeks to charge’ a former President using evidence of official acts.’
Blanche argued that Bragg ‘violated the Presidential immunity doctrine by using similar official-acts evidence in the grand jury proceedings that gave rise to the politically motivated charges in this case.’
‘Because an Indictment so tainted cannot stand, the charges must be dismissed,’ Blanche argued.
Blanche also explained that the Supreme Court’s decision does not allow for an ‘overwhelming evidence’ or ‘harmless error’ exception to ‘the profound institutional interests at stake.’
‘Indeed, Trump contemplates a pretrial interlocutory appeal of an adverse Presidential immunity determination precisely because even the prospect of such a trial is constitutionally unacceptable,’ Blanche wrote. ‘It necessarily follows that the results of a trial conducted in breach of these holdings is invalid.’
Trump was set to be sentenced Thursday, just days before the Republican National Convention where he is set to be formally nominated the 2024 GOP presidential nominee.
But Merchan, last week, granted Trump’s request to delay that sentencing. Merchan moved the sentencing hearing to September 18, ‘if such is still necessary.’
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on presidential immunity came from a question that stemmed from charges brought against Trump in a separate, federal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith related to the events of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach and any alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in that case.