Trump attorneys cite Hunter Biden pardon in move to clear cases
By Brett Rowland
The Center Square
Attorneys for President-elect Donald Trump are working to clear out pending criminal cases before he takes office in January.
Federal prosecutors have already moved to end two criminal cases against Trump – the election interference case in Washington, D.C. and the classified documents case in Florida.
That leaves the hush money case in New York and the election interference charges in Georgia.
This week, Trump's defense team asked New York Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss his conviction. In an 80-page dismissal motion, Trump's team said prosecutors should never have filed charges. The motion cited President Joe Biden's pardon of his son, Hunter, in which the president said his son was unfairly targeted for political reasons.
Trump has repeatedly said the criminal cases against him were coordinated by his political opponents. His attorneys have continued those assertions in court motions.
"This case should never have been brought, particularly during a period when DA Bragg's failure to protect this City from pervasive violent crime frightens, threatens, and harms New Yorkers on a daily basis," Trump's defense attorneys wrote. "And this case would never have been brought were it not for President Trump's political views, the transformative national movement established under his leadership, and the political threat that he poses to entrenched, corrupt politicians in Washington, D.C. and beyond."
In May, a New York jury convicted Trump on all counts in the hush money case. Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records for disguising hush money payments to an adult film actress as legal costs ahead of the 2016 election. Under New York state law, falsifying business records in the first degree is a Class E felony with a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
"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 wrote.
They said the Presidential immunity doctrine, the Presidential Transition Act and the Supremacy Clause require that the New York hush money case be tossed immediately.
In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis faces growing pressure regarding the election interference case against Trump.
Trump's team wants the case tossed.
"A sitting president is completely immune from indictment or any criminal process, state or federal," Trump's attorney Steve Sadow wrote in the latest Georgia filing. "President Trump respectfully submits that upon reaching that decision, this Court should dismiss his appeal for lack of jurisdiction with directions to the trial court to immediately dismiss the indictment against President Trump."
Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris last month to win another term in the White House. Trump's inauguration is set for Jan. 20, 2025.