Former President Trump is seeking to derail the start of his first criminal trial just two weeks out from when it is scheduled to begin, asserting a presidential immunity defense in the case for the first time.
In court documents filed Monday, Trump’s lawyers said prosecutors have suggested they will introduce at trial “several types of evidence that implicate the concept of official acts for purposes of presidential immunity.”
Trump has asserted presidential immunity requires charges in his other criminal cases be tossed entirely, and the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on April 25 with a decision likely to follow by the end of June.
Although he is not arguing presidential immunity requires his hush money charges be tossed, Trump is asserting that prosecutors should be limited from introducing certain evidence at the trial because they implicate official acts during his time in the White House.
“Therefore, President Trump respectfully submits that an adjournment of the trial is appropriate to await further guidance from the Supreme Court, which should facilitate the appropriate application of the presidential immunity doctrine in this case to the evidence the People intend to offer at trial,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in their 26-page motion.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with reimbursements he made to his ex-fixer, Michael Cohen, for a hush money payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Trump pleaded not guilty.
Scheduled to begin March 25, the trial is set to mark the first of Trump’s criminal cases. It remains unclear if any of his other criminal prosecutions will reach a jury before Election Day, and Trump’s new motions appear aimed at delaying the hush money trial, too.
Accepting Trump’s argument would delay the trial until the summer, if not later.
Previously, as Trump aimed to move his case to federal court, he unsuccessfully attempted to assert immunity under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. But a judge rejected the argument, also noting in his ruling that Trump had “expressly waived any argument premised on a theory of absolute presidential immunity.”
Trump’s lawyers said state prosecutors now expect to introduce evidence of a “fictitious so-called ‘pressure campaign’” in 2018 — during the time that Trump was president — against Cohen, Trump’s ex-fixer.
Prosecutors indicated late last month they wanted to introduce such evidence to show Trump’s “attempts to dissuade witnesses from cooperating with law enforcement,” and the former president is now raising concerns that it would implicate matters protected by presidential immunity.
Trump also argued that prosecutors want to introduce a financial disclosure Trump submitted while president in 2018.
“The Court must preclude the People from offering evidence at trial of President Trump’s official acts as the Commander in Chief, which the People have not yet specified as the existing trial date approaches,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
A Bragg spokesperson declined to comment.
The development comes weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to take up Trump’s presidential immunity claims arising in his federal 2020 election subversion case in Washington, D.C.
The former president’s appeals in D.C. have successfully delayed his federal criminal trial there indefinitely.
His theory that he cannot be criminally prosecuted has been rejected by both his federal election interference trial judge in Washington, D.C., and a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the case remains on hold while the Supreme Court considers the matter.
“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the D.C. Circuit panel wrote in its 57-page decision earlier this month. “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”
The former president has also claimed presidential immunity in his federal classified documents case and the Georgia election interference case.
Updated at 1:43 p.m.