Alvin Bragg Requests Judge Merchan Delay ‘Hush Money’ Case
Manhattan’s George Soros-funded Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg has requested a stay on his “hush money” case against President Donald Trump until 2029.
New York prosecutors are asking Judge Juan Merchan to delay the case until Trump leaves the White House in January 2029.
On Tuesday, Bragg’s office made the request in a letter to Judge Merchan, a Biden donor with Democrat ties.
Last week. Merchan agreed to grant a stay on all deadlines associated with the conviction proceedings against Trump in the final months before he takes office.
Merchan granted the request to consider the effect of his election as president.
The ruling issues a stay on all deadlines, including the November 26 sentencing date for the “hush money” case.
Prosecutors had asked for the pause in proceedings, which they said would allow them to better evaluate the impact of Trump’s new status as president-elect.
In the Tuesday letter to Merchan, Bragg wrote:
“As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, Defendant’s inauguration as President will occur on January 20, 2025.
“Given the need to balance competing constitutional interests, consideration must be given to various non-dismissal options that may address any concerns raised by the pendency of a post-trial criminal proceeding during the presidency, such as deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term,” Bragg wrote.
Trump will be sworn into office as the 47th President of the United States on Jan. 20, 2025.
He will serve as the commander-in-chief until January 2029.
Bragg said his team would not oppose Trump’s request to stay further proceedings pending his attorneys’ motion to dismiss.
Despite Bragg’s hopes to simply delay the case, Trump’s team is planning on shutting the entire “witch hunt” down.
In a statement, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said:
“This is a total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American People who elected him in a landslide.”
“The Manhattan DA has conceded that this Witch Hunt cannot continue,” Cheung added.
“The lawless case is now stayed, and President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all.”
Bragg noted that New York prosecutors plan to oppose Trump’s defense attorneys’ motion to dismiss entirely.
Trump’s attorneys, who had filed a motion to vacate the charges completely, also backed the stay.
Democrat prosecutors across the country launched multiple politically motivated cases against Trump in the hope of derailing his re-election campaign.
However, the lawfare efforts backfired when they exposed the Democrats’ attempts to weaponize the justice system against their political opponents.
In the “hush money” case, Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
However, he was found guilty in May after a six-week-long unprecedented criminal trial in New York that produced no evidence to support the allegations.
Trump’s attorneys have requested that Merchan overturn the guilty verdict, citing the United States Supreme Court’s decision that former presidents have substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts in office.
Trump’s legal team argued that certain evidence presented by Bragg and New York prosecutors during the trial should not have been admitted, as they were “official acts.”
Specifically, Trump attorney Todd Blanche argued that testimony from former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks; former Special Assistant to the President Madeleine Westerhout; testimony regarding The Special Counsel’s Office and Congressional Investigations and the pardon power; testimony regarding President Trump’s response to FEC Inquiries; his presidential Twitter posts and other related testimony was impermissibly admitted during the trial.
Trump’s attorneys also pointed to his disclosures to the Office of Government Ethics as president.
Blanche said that “official-acts evidence” that Bragg presented to the grand jury “contravened the holding in Trump because Presidents ‘cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution,’” the motion reads.
“The Presidential immunity doctrine recognized in Trump pertains to all ‘criminal proceedings,’ including grand jury proceedings when a prosecutor ‘seeks to charge’ a former President using evidence of official acts.”
Blanche argued that Bragg “violated the Presidential immunity doctrine by using similar official-acts evidence in the grand jury proceedings that gave rise to the politically motivated charges in this case.”
“Because an Indictment so tainted cannot stand, the charges must be dismissed,” Blanche argued.
Blanche also explained that the Supreme Court’s decision does not allow for an “overwhelming evidence” or “harmless error” exception to “the profound institutional interests at stake.”
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on presidential immunity came from a question that stemmed from charges brought against Trump in a separate, federal case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Smith’s politically motivated case was related to the events on Jan. 6, 2021, and any alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in that case.
Smith is winding down his cases against Trump following his election as the 47th President of the United States.
Earlier this year, Smith’s classified documents case against Trump was dismissed by a federal judge in Florida.
The judge ruled that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel by Biden’s Justice Department.