By The Opinion
Dec 10, 2024, 10:47 PM EST
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg urged a New York judge on Tuesday to do not cancel the criminal conviction of the president-elect donald trump in his case of secret payment of bribe money to the porn actress Stormy Daniels .
The elected president donald trump He could receive a non-prison sentence, or his sentence could be delayed until he leaves office, rather than having his conviction dismissed entirely, Bragg argued in a court filing unsealed Tuesday.
The district attorney urged New York Judge Juan Merchan to reject Trump’s request to overturn the jury’s verdict and dismiss the case. with the argument of presidential immunityarguing that the request goes “far beyond what is necessary to protect the presidency.”
“The people recognize the importance of an orderly executive transition and the peaceful transfer of power, but those interests do not require the extraordinary measure of eliminating the practice of post-trial motions in a pre-existing criminal case,” the filing says.
“The immunity of the elected president does not exist. And even after the inauguration, the defendant’s temporary immunity as acting president will not justify the extreme remedy of discarding the jury’s unanimous guilty verdict and eliminating the already completed phases of this criminal process,” according to the filing.
Trump was found guilty in May 34 serious counts of falsifying business records related to a secret payment of money in exchange for her silence made to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to increase their electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential elections.
The sentence has been delayed three times and Trump is pushing for the case to be dismissed entirely as he prepares to return to the White House after his re-election in November.
Trump’s federal election interference case was dismissed last month due to the Justice Department’s standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president, and a federal appeals court removed Trump from the government’s ongoing appeal in the special prosecutor Jack Smith’s classified documents case based on the same policy.
Keep reading:
• Trump’s lawyers cite Hunter Biden’s pardon to dismiss conviction for payment of secret money
• Trump calls for dismissal of charges in Georgia election interference case
• Trump celebrates the fall of his two federal cases: “It was a political kidnapping”