- Trump now says SCOTUS immunity voids his entire hush-money case, not just his conviction.
- The argument was made in a 55-page legal filing on Thursday.
- It argues that grand jurors should never have seen 'official-act' evidence now banned by SCOTUS.
In a new court filing made public Thursday, lawyers for former President Donald Trump argue that his newly-won presidential immunity voids not only his hush-money conviction, but the indictment itself.
Grand jurors should never have been shown "official-act" evidence in violation of "the Presidential immunity doctrine" set earlier this month by the US Supreme Court, the 55-page filing argues.
SCOTUS found that former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts and that such acts cannot be used as evidence against them, even in the prosecution of non-official acts.
The filing appears to mention at least four instances of "official-acts testimony" used by Manhattan prosecutors in the grand jury that indicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
But one portion of Trump's filing has been redacted to obscure what this official-act evidence purportedly was.
No reason for the redactions was given, but grand jury proceedings are presumptively secret in New York.
Showing grand jurors this evidence retroactively tainted the indictment, Trump argues.
"Because an Indictment so tainted cannot stand, the charges must be dismissed," a lawyer for Trump, Todd Blanche, writes in the filing.
Read the Trump motion to dismiss his hush-money indictment and his verdict here.
Trump's defense team had warned in a one-page court filing just hours after the landmark immunity opinion was published that it would be using it to challenge his May 30 hush-money conviction.
That July 1 filing — a letter to New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan — sketched out some of the same arguments made more fully by Blanche on Thursday.
This is a breaking story; please check back for developments.
