NEW YORK: US President-elect Donald Trump’s attorneys sought to dismiss his criminal fraud conviction, arguing President Joe Biden used similar reasoning to pardon his son, Hunter Biden.

The Democratic lame-duck president pardoned his son on Sunday, after Hunter was convicted earlier this year of tax evasion and illegally possessing a firearm, arguing he was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” by the Department of Justice (DOJ) “only because he is my son”.

Trump’s motion to dismiss, filed on Monday, saw his legal team cite the arguments used by Biden to make their own case to presiding judge Juan Merchan.

Biden’s “comments amounted to an extraordinary condemnation of President Biden’s own DOJ,” the letter’s introduction reads. “This is the same DOJ that coordinated and oversaw the politically-motivated, election-interference witch hunts targeting President Trump.”

The 69-page brief also invoked the doctrine of presidential immunity — which the Supreme Court has ruled extends to “official acts” while being president — and the Presidential Transition Act, among other laws, to “immediately dismiss the Indictment and vacate the jury’s verdicts”.

Trump, 78, was found guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records from covering up the payment of $130,000 to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels to silence her from coming forward about an alleged extramarital affair during the final stretch of the 2016 election campaign.

Merchan, the judge in the only criminal case against Trump that has gone to trial, indefinitely postponed Trump’s sentencing at a hearing on Nov 22, given his win in the Nov 5 presidential election.

With Trump’s defence team filing to dismiss the case, Merchan will now have to decide whether to throw out the case entirely, or to suspend any legal consequences until after the end of Trump’s upcoming term in office, which will begin on Jan 20.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2024