President Donald Trump’s lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the Democrats’ 2020 election case.
Late Monday night, Trump’s attorneys told the judge that the case should be dismissed as a violation of the Constitution.
They also argue that the get-Trump case is an instance of “vindictive prosecution.”
In a series of motions to dismiss, Trump’s team alleged that his prosecution violates multiple parts of the Constitution.
Those violations include Trump’s First Amendment right to free speech and the Due Process clause.
Earlier this month, his legal team filed another motion to dismiss, asserting that he is immune from prosecution because the actions were taken within the bounds of his office.
Trump’s lawyers told Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan that the prosecution exercised “an astonishing display of doublethink.”
They note that the Democrat prosecutors stated that the 45th president has a right to speak publicly about his belief that there was election fraud.
However, prosecutors are also asserting that, by exercising his free speech rights, Trump sought to “defraud the United States,” “oppress rights,” and “obstruct an official proceeding.”
Trump’s lawyers also argued he could not be retried in court because he was acquitted of the same offenses by the Senate.
“Additionally, as the United States Senate has previously tried and acquitted President Trump for charges arising from the same course of conduct alleged in the indictment, the impeachment and double jeopardy clauses both bar retrial before this Court and require dismissal,” the filing states.
Seeking dismissal of federal J6 indictment, the Trump legal team files new argument on 'the party convicted.' https://t.co/Gq2ZX6AAV1 pic.twitter.com/rWk5wSNUBi
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 24, 2023
Trump’s legal team alleged the indictment was an instance of “selective and vindictive prosecution.”
They wrote in the filings that there have been no other prosecutions in American history relating to alternate electors.
“This case, urged by Biden when many prosecutors and agents appropriately saw no basis for it, is a straightforward retaliatory response to President Trump’s decisions as Commander In Chief in 2020, his exercising his constitutional rights to free speech and to petition for the redress of grievances, and his decision to run for political office,” they wrote.
In a separate filing, his lawyers said Trump did not violate the statutes he was charged with, even if the allegations in the indictment are true.
They said prosecutors wrongly stretched the language in “a statute directed at the destruction of records in accounting fraud” to cover disputing a presidential election.
Prosecutors responded to Trump’s initial motion to dismiss earlier this month by claiming it is unsupported by American history.
There is no “legal principle, case or historical practice” backing the idea that a former president is immune from criminal prosecution, prosecutors argued.
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