Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg - who had a Biden DOJ plant in his legal case against former President Donald Trump - is trying to ensure his hush money case doesn’t vanish into thin air as Trump prepares for his return to the White House.
According to court filings revealed Tuesday, Bragg’s office is fiercely opposed to dismissing the case outright but is open to pausing proceedings while Trump serves his second term as president.
The 82-page legal brief, prosecutors’ most detailed argument yet, stops short of recommending an explicit course of action but outlines several ways to keep the case alive. Among them: delaying sentencing until after Trump leaves office in 2029 or freezing the case while leaving the jury’s guilty verdict intact, The Hill reports.
"The extreme remedy of dismissing the indictment and vacating the jury verdict is not warranted in light of multiple alternative accommodations that would fully address the concerns raised by presidential immunity," wrote Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy.
The filing comes as Trump, now president-elect, wages a legal battle to quash the 34 felony charges stemming from hush money payments to an adult film star. Trump’s lawyers claim his status as president-elect grants him immunity and demands immediate dismissal.
Prosecutors, however, aren’t buying it. They argue that immunity doesn’t apply until Trump is inaugurated, meaning the case could theoretically proceed to sentencing before January 20, 2025 — a prospect Trump has vowed to fight tooth and nail.
Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, will now decide the case’s fate, with a ruling expected any day.
A Legal Tightrope
The DA’s office acknowledged the complications of prosecuting a sitting president but stopped short of saying the case should be completely shelved.
Trump was convicted by a Manhattan Jury 'of his peers' on 34 counts of falsifying business records, however his reelection to the highest office in the land has put a damper on prosecutors' plans.
Sentencing was initially scheduled for last month, only to be postponed indefinitely by Judge Merchan, making it increasingly unlikely Trump will face punishment anytime soon.
That would leave open the possibility that Trump could still proceed to sentencing in 2029, after he leaves office.
Alternatively, state prosecutors said the judge could terminate the case without tossing Trump’s conviction, noting a jury verdict removed the presumption of innocence, he was never sentenced and his conviction was “neither affirmed nor reversed” on appeal because of presidential immunity. -The Hill
Trump’s legal team is crying foul, claiming the prosecution disrupts his transition efforts and his ability to govern effectively. "Wrongly continuing proceedings in this failed lawfare case disrupts President Trump’s transition efforts and his preparations to wield the full Article II executive power authorized by the Constitution pursuant to the overwhelming national mandate granted to him by the American people on November 5, 2024," Trump's attorneys fumed in a recent filing.
Prosecutors hit back, accusing Trump of using delay tactics to muddy the waters. “Having filed those motions to dismiss and then sought repeated adjournments of sentencing to permit their determination by this Court, it is particularly brazen for defendant to argue that the Supremacy Clause bars the Court from taking any action on the motions defendant himself filed,” Conroy wrote.
