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Trump attys ask feds to take over Bragg’s ‘hush money’ case as sentencing looms just before election

August 30, 2024 | | Print Article

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers have asked a federal court to seize the hush money case from New York prosecutors.

According to the attorneys, the hush money case being prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is essentially interfering with Trump’s ability to run for president.

The lawyers explained in a filing Thursday that the “ongoing proceedings will continue to cause direct and irreparable harm to President Trump — the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential election — and voters located far beyond Manhattan,” according to Fox News.

“And an entirely unjust sentencing is currently scheduled to occur on September 18, 2024, which could result in President Trump’s immediate and unconstitutional incarceration and prevent him from continuing his groundbreaking campaign,” the filing continued.

“Post-trial removal is necessary under these circumstances to afford President Trump an unbiased forum, free from local hostilities, where he can seek redress for these Constitutional violations,” the lawyers concluded.

The filing comes three months after Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

In the filing, the lawyers also argued that Bragg’s office “violated the Presidential immunity doctrine in grand jury proceedings, and again at trial, by relying on evidence of President Trump’s official acts during his first term in Office.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that these types of violations threaten the structure of the federal government and the ability of future Presidents to carry out their vital duties in the way the Framers intended,” they wrote, referencing a recent SCOTUS ruling.

“In an opinion that became final less than 30 days ago, the Supreme Court held that President Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts, and — as particularly relevant here — that prosecutors may not use official-acts evidence in connection with a prosecution that they claim arises out of unofficial conduct,” the lawyers continued.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung for his part told Fox News that “the Manhattan DA’s Witch Hunt, which violates many provisions of the United States Constitution and is crushed by the Supreme Court’s historic decision on Presidential immunity, has to be removed to federal court and summarily dismissed.”

This is reportedly the second time Trump has attempted to move the case from New York and into the federal system.

In July of 2023, another federal judge ruled that “hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts” and that it “does not reflect in any way the color of the President’s official duties.”

Meanwhile, in related news, the judge presiding over Bragg’s case, Juan Merchan, has yet to rule on an earlier request that Trump’s sentencing be delayed until after the 2024 presidential election.

“The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has not moved to oppose Trump’s delay request,” Forbes noted. “In the event neither of his legal challenges succeed, Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in the case on September 18—just seven weeks before Election Day.”

All this comes months after the New York Times published a stunning op-ed by Boston University legal professor Jed Handelsman Shugerman arguing that the attempt to prosecute Trump for election interference just because he paid some hush money is a “historic mistake.”

“As a reality check, it is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement,” Shugerman wrote. “The election law scholar Richard Hasen rightly observed, ‘Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.’”

The quote he used was plucked from a Los Angeles Times column written earlier this month by Richard Hasen, a University of California Los Angeles law professor.

“Although the New York case gets packaged as election interference, failing to report a campaign payment is a small potatoes campaign-finance crime,” he wrote in his piece. “Any voters who look beneath the surface are sure to be underwhelmed.”

Vivek Saxena
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