New York prosecutors are requesting a stay until at least 2029 in New York v. Trump, as the president’s defense attorneys prepare to move to dismiss the case entirely.
Prosecutors wrote a letter to Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday, who agreed last week to grant a stay on all deadlines associated with the conviction proceedings against Trump in the final months before he takes office.
Merchan granted the request, which issues a stay on all deadlines, including the Nov. 26 sentencing date, to consider the effect of his election as president.
Prosecutors had asked for the pause in proceedings, which they said would allow them to better evaluate the impact of Trump’s new status as president-elect.
“As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, Defendant’s inauguration as President will occur on January 20, 2025,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg wrote to Merchan on Tuesday.
“Given the need to balance competing constitutional interests, consideration must be given to various non-dismissal options that may address any concerns raised by the pendency of a post-trial criminal proceeding during the presidency, such as deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term,” Bragg wrote.
Trump, who will be sworn into office as the 47th President of the United States on Jan. 20, 2025, will be the commander-in-chief until 2029.
Bragg said his team would not oppose Trump’s request to stay further proceedings pending his attorneys’ motion to dismiss.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital that “this is a total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American People who elected him in a landslide.”
“The Manhattan DA has conceded that this Witch Hunt cannot continue,” Cheung, who was tapped to serve as White House communications director, said. “The lawless case is now stayed, and President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all.”
Bragg noted that New York prosecutors plan to oppose Trump defense attorneys’ motion to dismiss entirely,
Trump looks on during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 16, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
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Trump’s attorneys, who had filed a motion to vacate the charges completely, also backed the stay.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree but was found guilty in May after a six-week-long unprecedented criminal trial in New York.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks to the media after a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on Thursday, May 30, 2024, in New York. (AP/Seth Wenig)
Trump’s attorneys have requested that Merchan overturn the guilty verdict, citing the United States Supreme Court’s decision that former presidents have substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts in office. Trump’s legal team argued that certain evidence presented by Bragg and New York prosecutors during the trial should not have been admitted, as they were “official acts.”
Specifically, Trump attorney Todd Blanche argued that testimony from former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks; former Special Assistant to the President Madeleine Westerhout; testimony regarding The Special Counsel’s Office and Congressional Investigations and the pardon power; testimony regarding President Trump’s response to FEC Inquiries; his presidential Twitter posts and other related testimony was impermissably admitted during trial.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree but was found guilty in May after a six-week-long unprecedented criminal trial in New York. (AP/Evan Vucci)
Trump attorneys also pointed to Trump’s disclosures to the Office of Government Ethics as president.
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Blanche said that “official-acts evidence” that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg presented to the grand jury “contravened the holding in Trump because Presidents ‘cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution,'” the motion read. “The Presidential immunity doctrine recognized in Trump pertains to all ‘criminal proceedings,’ including grand jury proceedings when a prosecutor ‘seeks to charge’ a former President using evidence of official acts.”
Blanche argued that Bragg “violated the Presidential immunity doctrine by using similar official-acts evidence in the grand jury proceedings that gave rise to the politically motivated charges in this case.”
“Because an Indictment so tainted cannot stand, the charges must be dismissed,” Blanche argued.
Image of Judge Juan Merchan imposed over a courtroom. (AP)
Blanche also explained that the Supreme Court’s decision does not allow for an “overwhelming evidence” or “harmless error” exception to “the profound institutional interests at stake.”
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on presidential immunity came from a question that stemmed from charges brought against Trump in a separate, federal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith related to the events on Jan. 6, 2021 and any alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in that case.
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Smith is winding down his cases against Trump following his election as the 47th President of the United States.
Smith’s classified records case against Trump was dismissed by a federal judge in Florida earlier this year, who ruled that the special counsel was unlawfully appointed.
