Trump’s lawyers rebuff DA’s idea for upholding his hush money conviction, calling it ‘absurd’
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers urged a judge again Friday to throw out his hush money conviction, balking at the prosecution’s suggestion of preserving the verdict by treating the case the way some courts do when a defendant dies. They called the idea “absurd.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is asking Judge Juan M. Merchan to “pretend as if one of the assassination attempts against President Trump had been successful,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a blistering 23-page response.
In court papers made public Tuesday, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office proposed an array of options for keeping the historic conviction on the books after Trump’s lawyers filed paperwork earlier this month asking for the case to be dismissed.
They include freezing the case until Trump leaves office in 2029, agreeing that any future sentence won’t include jail time, or closing the case by noting he was convicted but that he wasn’t sentenced and his appeal wasn’t resolved because of presidential immunity.