President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s recent hush money case proposal as “absurd” in a new legal filing.
What to Know About Trump’s Hush Money Case
Trump’s election win has complicated Bragg’s case in which a New York jury in late May found Trump, who was a former president at the time, guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before his first presidential election in 2016. Daniels alleges she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, which he denies. The former president has maintained his innocence, claiming the case is politically motivated.
The judge overseeing the case, Juan Merchan, has to make the difficult decision of how to move forward with the case as Trump heads to the White House in a few weeks. In the meantime, Merchan postponed Trump’s sentencing, originally scheduled to take place in July, indefinitely.
Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, have pushed to dismiss the case, first on the grounds of presidential immunity and then in light of Trump’s election victory. Merchan has yet to make a decision on either argument.
Alvin Bragg’s Unusual Suggestion
Bragg’s office recently suggested a few options to keep the case going without interfering with Trump’s upcoming presidential duties. One of these suggestions is for Merchan to use a mechanism known as abatement.
Abatement is when a legal proceeding is suspended and is used in some states, including Alabama, when convicted defendants die before appeals are exhausted.
“This remedy would prevent defendant from being burdened during his presidency by an ongoing criminal proceeding” but also wouldn’t “precipitously discard” the “meaningful fact that defendant was indicted and found guilty by a jury of his peers,” Bragg’s office wrote in a filing this week.
Donald Trump’s Lawyers Respond
Blanche and Bove wrote in a 23-page filing Friday that Bragg’s office is asking Merchan to “pretend as if one of the assassination attempts against President Trump had been successful.”
Trump was victim to two assassination attempts this year, one during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13 when a bullet pierced his right ear, and one while Trump was out golfing on his course in Florida on September 15. Trump was not injured in the second assassination attempt.
Trump’s lawyers accused Bragg’s office of ignoring New York precedent and attempting to “fabricate” a solution “based on an extremely troubling and irresponsible analogy between President Trump and a hypothetical dead defendant.”
It’s unclear if the suggestion of abatement is available under New York law.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
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