Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office has filed a legal brief with Judge Juan Marchan asking him not to overturn President-elect Donald Trump's guilty verdict in a Manhattan criminal case, and the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has filed a legal brief asking Judge Juan Marchan not to overturn President-elect Donald Trump's guilty verdict in a Manhattan criminal case. proposed an alternative plan to keep the case on ice until the end of the process.
“There is no immunity for a president-elect. And even after taking office, the defendant's temporary immunity as a sitting president would overturn the jury's unanimous guilty verdict and the already completed stage of this criminal proceeding.” “This does not justify the extreme remedy of wiping out the entire system,” a Tuesday court filing from Bragg's office said.
Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the Manhattan incident in May. Mr. Bragg's office said Mr. Trump made a $130,000 payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence her claims about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump in 2006. The company strove to prove that the company had falsified business records in order to conceal the facts.
President Trump has maintained his innocence in the case and has repeatedly denounced it as an example of legal maneuvers pushed by Democrats to harm his upcoming November election campaign.
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Former President Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower on Thursday, May 30, 2024, after being found guilty of 34 counts of first-degree falsification of business records. (Felipe Ramares, Fox News Digital)
President Trump's sentencing in the case has been repeatedly delayed. Mr. Trump's lawyers made the move after the Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents are given effective immunity from prosecution for official actions taken while in office, but not for unofficial actions. It had called on Mr Marchand to overturn the former president's guilty verdict. Machan has not yet passed judgment on the immunity argument.
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Mr. Bragg's office acknowledged in a filing Tuesday that Mr. Trump cannot be sentenced as president, but asked Mr. Marchand to freeze the case until 2029 and allow the second presidential administration to He later argued that there were various options for sentencing Trump.
”[N]o The principle of immunity precludes further proceedings prior to the appointment of the defendant. And even if a sentence had not been imposed at the time the defendant was sworn in, there is no legal barrier to delaying sentencing until the end of the defendant's term,” the filing states.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg leaves the trial of Daniel Penny at the Manhattan Supreme Criminal Court building on Monday, December 2, 2024 in New York City. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
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The prosecutor's office said that by discontinuing proceedings in the case, the former president and the president-elect would be “relieved of their immediate obligations in this case during their terms of office, while at the same time acting in the public interest of upholding the rule of law and preserving society.” We will respect that,” he said. meaningful aspects of criminal proceedings that have already taken place; ” The prosecutor's office had already sought to halt the case after the election, and Tuesday's filing further strengthened that argument.
“Certainly, the public does not dispute that presidential immunity requires consideration during the president's time in office. “The extreme remedy of vacating the jury's verdict is not warranted “caused by executive privilege,'' their filing states.
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Judge Juan Machan (left) and President-elect Donald Trump. (AP)
Mr Bragg's office also revealed that Mr Marchand may take advantage of a legal process known as sentence reduction. Commutation of sentences is a practice used in states such as Alabama when a defendant dies after being convicted but before sentencing. In such cases, the state may uphold the conviction but halt other court proceedings.
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President Trump's spokesman Stephen Chuen denounced the filing Tuesday as a “pathetic attempt to salvage the remains of an unconstitutional and politically motivated misinformation.”
After Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris last month, Trump officials exclusively told Fox News Digital that the case was “effectively over” after Bragg requested a stay until 2029. He spoke clearly.
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“Prosecutors are trying to save face,” a Trump official told Fox News Digital. “They know this case will soon be thrown out.”
Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
