NEW YORK: President-elect Donald Trump's lawyers alleged his conviction on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star was tainted by juror misconduct, but details were scant because much of their court filing was redacted from public view.
In a filing dated Dec. 3 and made public on Tuesday, Trump's lawyers said Justice Juan Merchan should keep the misconduct allegation in mind while considering a separate motion to dismiss the charges.
Jurors in the trial were anonymous. Merchan said in a court filing on Monday that making the misconduct allegations public without redactions could place them at risk.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which brought the charges, said the defense’s “vague” allegations fell short of the standard that would require a hearing to investigate them.
In a letter dated Dec. 5 and also made public on Tuesday, the prosecutors said Trump was seeking to inject “unsworn, untested, and at least partially inaccurate allegations into the public domain.”
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment that Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The payment was for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.
The Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment. It was the first time a U.S. president - former or sitting - had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offense.
After Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, defense lawyers urged Merchan to overturn the conviction on the basis that having the case loom over Trump after he begins his second White House term on Jan. 20 would disrupt his ability to govern.
“The Court should not avert its eyes to the complete lack of fundamental fairness to President Trump throughout these proceedings,“ Trump's lawyers wrote.
Bragg's office has said measures short of overturning the conviction, such as guaranteeing that Trump will not face prison time, would assuage his concerns.
Trump on Monday lost yet another bid to dismiss the case. when Merchan rejected his argument that the Supreme Court's July ruling recognizing immunity from prosecution for a president's official acts meant the verdict could not stand.
The judge sided with the prosecutors, who argued that the conduct at issue in the hush money case was personal in nature.
