Former President Donald Trump on Monday asked a Manhattan judge to throw out his conviction in a hush-money lawsuit following a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed his absolute immunity for official duties as president.
The request was made in a letter sent by the 78-year-old former president’s lawyers to Judge Juan Merchan, asking the judge for permission to postpone Trump’s July 11 sentencing and to file a motion to dismiss the case, The Washington Post has seen.
Trump’s legal team must notify Marchan in writing before filing any motions in the case.
The letter is expected to be made public on Tuesday, after which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office will be given an opportunity to respond.
This request is The New York TimesThe comments came 10 days before Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in the case in which a jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal his sexual relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The lawyers’ letter urged Marchan to consider how the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday will affect Trump’s historic May 30 conviction.
The high court’s ruling bars prosecutors from charging the president with official conduct or using evidence of official conduct in prosecutions.
However, the Supreme Court left it to lower courts to determine what constitutes official acts.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment.
Trump’s lawyers declined to comment.
Trump He was claiming In previous court filings, he argued that social media posts about the prosecution’s key witness, former fixer Michael Cohen, were from his time in the White House and should have been excluded from the trial under executive immunity.
The deadline for post-trial motions has already passed, so it’s unclear whether Marchan will reconsider the conviction.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, praised the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday, calling it “a major victory for our Constitution and democracy” in a post on Truth Social.
Meanwhile, a senior Biden campaign official described the Supreme Court’s decision as akin to giving the former president “the keys to a dictatorship.”
President Biden also slammed the 6-3 Supreme Court decision, which will further delay President Trump’s case to overturn the 2020 federal election.
“The man who led that mob into the United States Capitol can be convicted for what happened that day, and the American people deserve answers in a court of law before the upcoming election,” the 81-year-old president said in remarks from the White House on Monday.
“The public has a right to know the answers to what happened on January 6th before they are asked to vote again this year,” he added.
“Today’s decision makes that highly unlikely,” Biden said. “This is a terrible disservice to the American people.”
