Trump says voters' decision on Election Day supersedes hush money jury guilty verdict

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s attorneys argued that the decision made by voters on Election Day matters more than that of the jury who found him guilty of felonies this year in court filings made public Wednesday previewing renewed efforts to get his criminal hush money case tossed.

In a pre-motion letter to state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, recently tapped by Trump for top positions in the Department of Justice, asked state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan for permission to file the motion by Dec. 20.

“Immediate dismissal of this case is mandated by the federal Constitution, the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, and the interests of justice, in order to facilitate the orderly transition of Executive power following President Trump’s overwhelming victory in the 2024 Presidential election,” Blanche and Bove wrote,

“Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect.”

Bove and Blanche argued that letting the case proceed would destabilize the nation and threaten the government’s foreign and domestic affairs.

“On November 5, 2024, the Nation’s People issued a mandate that supersedes the political motivations of DANY’s ‘People,’” they wrote. “This case must be immediately dismissed.”

A jury found Trump, 78, guilty of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records on May 30 stemming from his reimbursement to Michael Cohen for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels in the leadup to the 2016 election.

Cohen’s $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels bought her silence for an alleged sordid sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Jurors found it was part of a scheme to hide unflattering information about his past from the U.S. electorate.

The defense filing comes a day after prosecutors asked the judge to set a new schedule in the case — which was previously supposed to see Trump sentenced next week — and concede that Trump may not see consequences for the guilty verdicts until he’s out of office, in 2029.

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