Trump files 500-page lawsuit against judge, Manhattan DA in bid to halt hush money sentencing

Donald Trump’s legal blitz to halt his sentencing in his criminal hush money case in New York continued Tuesday morning with his lawyers filing a 502-page lawsuit against Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump’s lawyers asked a New York appeals court to stop the proceedings in the president-elect’s hush money case — including his Jan. 10 sentencing — and to dismiss his conviction outright based on a claim of presidential immunity.

The filing contained a 38-page legal argument with hundreds of pages of exbibits.

“Justice Merchan’s erroneous decisions threaten the institution of the Presidency and run squarely against established precedent disallowing any criminal process against a President-Elect, as well as prohibiting the use of evidence of a President’s official acts against him in a criminal proceeding,” the filing argued.

Defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — both of whom Trump has picked for top Justice Department posts in his incoming administration — claimed in the suit that Trump’s “undisputed absolute immunity” extends to his time as president-elect — an argument that Judge Merchan roundly denied last week.

The lawyers also claimed that the jury’s verdict was “erroneous” because they saw evidence related to official acts.

“President Trump brings this Article 78 proceeding to redress the serious and continuing infringement on his Presidential immunity from criminal process that he holds as the 45th and soon-to-be 47th President of the United States of America,” the filing said.

Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.

Merchan initially scheduled Trump’s sentencing for July 11 before pushing it back in order to weigh if Trump’s conviction was impacted by the Supreme Court’s July ruling prohibiting the prosecution of a president for official acts undertaken while in office. Merchan subsequently ruled that Trump’s conviction related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”

The president-elected faces up to four years in prison, but Merchan last week indicated that he would sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge — effectively a blemish on Trump’s record, without prison, fines or probation — saying that would strike a balance between the duties of president and the sanctity of the jury’s verdict.

Merchan on Monday denied a separate request by Trump to halt the sentencing in the case.