Trump officials told Fox News Digital that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case is “effectively over” after the far-left DA requested a stay until 2029, calling the move a “major victory” for President-elect Donald Trump. On Tuesday, Bragg filed a request to delay proceedings in New York v. Trump until 2029, as Trump’s legal team pushes for the case to be dismissed entirely. Prosecutors in New York said on Tuesday that, while they are likely to oppose the argument, they are open to being briefed on the case for complete dismissal presented by Trump’s defense attorneys. “Prosecutors are trying to save face,” a Trump official told Fox News Digital. “They know this case will soon be thrown out.”
Another official told Fox News Digital that New York prosecutors’ “fallback” is a “five-year delay.” The official added, “No serious person believes this case will withstand that.” Meanwhile, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung also told Fox News Digital that Bragg’s request for a stay is “a total and definitive victory for President Trump and the American People who elected him in a landslide.” Cheung, who was tapped to serve as White House communications director, added: “The Manhattan DA has conceded that this Witch Hunt cannot continue. The lawless case is now stayed, and President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all.”
According to a source close to Trump and his legal team, Bragg’s decision “represents a total failure of the prosecution.” Continuing, the source told Fox News, “Their case is in shambles and now everyone knows it is on its way to the ash heap of history. This thing is not coming back in five years — no one would argue it is. This case is effectively over. It is a major victory for President Trump.”
Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, charges stemming from a years-long investigation into alleged hush money payments led by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The investigation was initiated by former DA Cyrus Vance, who decided against prosecution, but later picked up by Bragg after he, too, initially declined to move forward.
Following an unprecedented six-week trial in New York City, a jury found Trump guilty on all counts, but that was based on the limited instructions given them by Judge Juan Merchan. Last week, he granted a stay on all deadlines related to the conviction proceedings in the weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States, including the previously scheduled November 26 sentencing date. Also, Trump’s attorneys have filed a request for Merchan to overturn the guilty verdict entirely, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming that former presidents have significant immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted while 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.”
More specifically, Trump attorney Todd Blanche, whom the president has nominated to serve as Deputy Attorney General at the Justice Department, argued that several pieces of evidence were improperly admitted during the trial. Specifically, Blanche challenged testimony from former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, former Special Assistant to the President Madeleine Westerhout, and testimony related to the Special Counsel’s Office, congressional investigations, the pardon power, Trump’s responses to FEC inquiries, his presidential Twitter posts, and other related matters.
Blanche said “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 read. “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 also argued that the DA “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.” He concluded: “Because an Indictment so tainted cannot stand, the charges must be dismissed.”
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