Trump cites Hunter Biden par­don as grounds to dis­miss New York case

The 72-page motion to dis­miss, filed in New York on Tues­day, argues that Biden’s state­ments under­mine the fair­ness of Trump’s pros­e­cu­tion, call­ing it polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed. The legal fil­ing quotes Biden’s remarks from his announce­ment of a 10-year par­don for Hunter Biden, cov­er­ing all crimes charged or uncharged.

“As Pres­i­dent Biden put it yes­ter­day, ‘Enough is enough,’” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “This case, which should nev­er have been brought, must now be dis­missed.”

Biden con­demned the treat­ment of his son in a state­ment Sun­day evening, assert­ing that Hunter had been “selec­tive­ly, and unfair­ly, pros­e­cut­ed” and that “raw pol­i­tics has infect­ed this process.” Trump’s lawyers sug­gest­ed that Biden’s remarks apply equal­ly to Trump’s New York case, which they called a “mis­car­riage of jus­tice.”

Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Alvin Bragg, an elect­ed Demo­c­rat whose office pros­e­cut­ed Trump for fal­si­fy­ing busi­ness records relat­ed to a hush mon­ey pay­ment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels dur­ing the 2016 elec­tion, was accused in the lengthy fil­ing of con­duct­ing “pre­cise­ly the type of polit­i­cal the­ater” Biden denounced. 

Trump was con­vict­ed in May on 34 counts, though Judge Juan Mer­chan indef­i­nite­ly post­poned sen­tenc­ing on Nov. 22, cit­ing Trump’s elec­tion vic­to­ry and con­tin­ued argu­ments about pres­i­den­tial immu­ni­ty.

Trump’s attor­neys, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, argue that Trump’s con­vic­tion should be dis­missed under the doc­trine of pres­i­den­tial immu­ni­ty, which pro­tects the pres­i­dent from crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion while in office. They con­tend that Bragg’s actions dis­rupt the fed­er­al government’s func­tion­ing and threat­en the bal­ance of pow­er between fed­er­al and state author­i­ties.

“This case is based on a con­trived, defec­tive, and unprece­dent­ed legal the­o­ry,” the fil­ing reads, adding that the charges stem from entries made in doc­u­ments “hun­dreds of miles away from the White House” dur­ing Trump’s pres­i­den­cy.

The defense lawyers, who have been named to top Jus­tice Depart­ment posi­tions in the upcom­ing admin­is­tra­tion, fur­ther crit­i­cized the prosecution’s sug­ges­tion that pro­ceed­ings could resume after Trump leaves office, call­ing it a “ridicu­lous” pro­pos­al that vio­lates con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions.

The fil­ing also takes aim at the DOJ under Biden, which has dropped two pros­e­cu­tions against Trump since his reelec­tion. It accus­es the depart­ment of orches­trat­ing “polit­i­cal­ly-moti­vat­ed, elec­tion-inter­fer­ence witch hunts.”

In addi­tion to cit­ing pres­i­den­tial immu­ni­ty, Trump’s legal team argues that the case should be dis­missed in the “inter­ests of jus­tice.” The pros­e­cu­tion, they say, risks impos­ing “endur­ing con­se­quences upon the bal­anced pow­er struc­ture of our repub­lic” and con­tributes to “fac­tion­al strife,” echo­ing Biden’s own calls for uni­ty dur­ing his par­don announce­ment.

Trump has like­wise main­tained that the Supreme Court’s deci­sion on July 1, which found for­mer pres­i­dents are gen­er­al­ly immune from offi­cial acts, should lead to a dis­missal of the case, con­tend­ing that the pros­e­cu­tion relied on tes­ti­mo­ny from Trump’s first term as pres­i­dent to inform the jury dur­ing the tri­al.

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The motion to dis­miss fil­ing could mark one of the last actions in the legal saga sur­round­ing the only one of four crim­i­nal indict­ments against Trump that ever made it to a tri­al before his reelec­tion.

Trump’s lawyers have asked Mer­chan to dis­miss the indict­ment or, alter­na­tive­ly, grant a two-week stay to allow Trump to seek fed­er­al injunc­tive relief. Bragg’s office has until Dec. 9 to respond.