Trump's Lawyer Quotes Hunter Biden's Death In Latest Legal Efforts Regarding The Case Of Silence Money

JAKARTA - United States President-elect Donald Trump's lawyer used President Joe Biden's pardon of his son Hunter to find the Republican politician guilty in the case of silence money in Manhattan to be canceled.

"Yesterday when he issued a 10-year pardon to Hunter Biden covering all the crimes, both charged and not, President Biden insisted his son was "selectively and unfairly prosecuted" and "differently treated," Trump's lawyer wrote in a motion filed on Monday, cited from CNN Dec. 4.

Meanwhile, Trump's lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, whom he has chosen for high positions in the Department of Justice in his new government, argues this comment is a curse to Biden's own Department of Justice and that New York Regional Attorney Alvin Bragg has been involved in the same "political theater".

It is known that the Bragg Office succeeded in indictting Trump earlier this year for falsifying business records regarding payment of silence money made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Judge Juan Mercan delayed Trump's sentence in the case indefinitely, after winning the 2024 US Presidential Election last November.

Trump's lawyers also want the verdict to be overturned, but prosecutors' offices say they will oppose any attempts to overturn the case.

In addition to the arguments for forgiveness, Trump's lawyers also told the judge his case had to be dropped given the results of the presidential election.

"President Trump's status as President-elect and President who will soon serve are a 'legal prohibition' for further criminal proceedings based on the President's immunity doctrine (determined by the Supreme Court last summer) and Klausul Supremacion," they wrote.

They pointed to Jack Smith's special adviser's decision to end two federal criminal cases he filed against Trump last year, a decision Smith said was rooted in the Justice Department's long-standing policy barring the department from prosecuting a criminally serving president.

"In fact (Smith) has been forced to admit, by the DOJ Legal Counsel's Office ('OLC'), that President Trump's status as President-elect mandates the cancellation of the unfair charges that are being filed against him," they wrote.

Last month, Bragg's office acknowledged to a court in New York that Trump would likely not be sentenced "until after the end of the defendant's upcoming presidential term," but argued Trump's criminal sentence should remain in effect.

Separately, a source close to the district attorney's office said the case was open to a four-year hiatus.

"There is no current law that stipulates the president's temporary immunity from the charge requires the cancellation of the post-trial criminal process, which begins at a time when the defendant is not immune from criminal charges and is based on official behavior that is also not immune to the defendant," wrote the district attorney's office.