Christine Cornell/Business Insider
In an 82-page court filing made public Tuesday, Manhattan prosecutors say Donald Trump's "history of malicious conduct" is too serious for his hush-money case to be dismissed.
The filing, signed by DA Alvin Bragg, also fights Trump's claim that he enjoys something called presidential-elect immunity — above and beyond the presidential immunity bestowed on him by the US Supreme Court in June.
"There are no grounds for such relief now, prior to inauguration," Bragg wrote in opposing Trump's 11th-hour motion to dismiss, "because President-elect immunity does not exist."
With just six weeks left before his January 20 inauguration — and six months after a Manhattan jury convicted him — Trump is again demanding that New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan immediately dismiss his hush-money case.
It's his third time trying to void his indictment or his conviction. If successful, Trump would escape altogether his already thrice-delayed sentencing.
The president elect faces as little as no jail time and a potential maximum of four years prison for falsifying 34 business records throughout his first year of office to retroactively hide a hush-money payment to adult actress Stormy Daniels. (Legal experts have said that it's unlikely Trump would be sentenced to jail time as a 78-year-old first-time offender convicted of low-level felonies, and any jail sentence would be stayed as he appeals.)
Trump paid for Daniels' silence just eleven days before 2016 election, and jurors unanimously found that he thereby conspired to promote his own election by unlawful means, Bragg wrote.
The evidence presented against Trump was "overwhelming," reads the filing, which is also signed by a lead prosecutor on the case, Christopher Conroy.
"The crimes that the jury convicted defendant of committing are serious offenses that caused extensive harm to the sanctity of the electoral process and to the integrity of New York's financial marketplace," which relies on honest record-keeping, Bragg wrote.
Trump's conduct during his hush-money prosecution also weighs heavily against dismissal, as does his "long history of threatening, abusing, and attacking participants in other legal proceedings in which he is involved," Bragg wrote.
Trump's "contemptuous" conduct began even before his hush-money indictment was voted, the prosecutor wrote.
"He threatened 'death and destruction' if he was indicted and posted a photo of himself wielding a baseball bat at the back of the District Attorney's head," Bragg wrote of Trump's actions while the grand jury was still hearing evidence in early 2023.
Later, Trump launched online attacks on Merchan and members of his family.
Trump was found guilty of criminal contempt ten times for his "extrajudicial speech" — including social media attacks on witnesses — during his trial this spring, Bragg wrote.
Trump also repeatedly attacked the law clerk and was accused of lying under oath by the judge during last year's civil fraud trial, in which he's been ordered to pay a $454 million judgment.
That judgment remains on hold pending appeal.
Trump's history of abusing the legal process extends to his other cases, Bragg wrote, including his continued defamations of writer E. Jean Carroll, who last year won more than $80 million in damages after the president-elect repeatedly mocked her and called her a liar.
Bragg's filling asked Merchan to either sentence Trump before the inauguration, or put the case on hold until after he serves out his second term.
