Former President Donald Trump’s attorney Jim Trusty said on Sunday he expects the Trump legal team to seek a motion to dismiss the historic New York City indictment over the $130,000 hush money payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
“I think there’s going to be some very well-placed motions to dismiss based on the legal frailties of this kind of mental gymnastics indictment that [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg is trying to piece together,” Trusty said in an ABC News “This Week” interview.
When asked by anchor Jonathan Karl if there will also be motions to request a change of venue — following Trump’s claims on Truth Social that the Republican-leaning borough of Staten Island would be a “very fair and secure location for the trial” — Trusty said a motion to dismiss the case takes priority.
“I think the motions to dismiss have to be a priority because they amputate this miscarriage of justice early on,” Trusty said.
“Legal motions that pick apart the statute of limitations problem, the specific intent problem, the bootstrapping of perhaps federal election law into a New York case,” he added. “There is a lot to play with there. And I think you’ll see some very robust motions. And I hope and think probably much earlier than December, which is the next court case.”
Trusty’s remarks come after the former president pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to criminal charges brought against him in New York — 34 counts of charges of falsifying business records. Trump has repeatedly denied breaking the law and claims — in frequent all-caps social media posts and a rambling post-arraignment speech — that his indictment is political persecution.
Trusty echoed some of Trump’s sentiments, accusing DA Bragg of targeting the former president and “flipping our criminal justice system upside down.”
“The president is obviously a very resilient guy. He’s upset by this situation in terms of being targeted and that’s really the key,” Trusty said. “He is very mindful of the historic nature of prosecutors flipping our criminal justice system upside down and saying ‘I’m gonna target somebody, vote for me.’ — in this case Donald Trump. If we cross that rubicon and we don’t shut this down somehow we’ve got a whole new model of criminal justice in this country…. This is a bad moment for this country.”
Trusty also repeated some attack lines employed by Trump and Republicans in Congress against the Manhattan DA, claiming he is a partisan prosecutor who “ran for office saying he’s the best guy to take out Donald Trump” and that he is getting help from the Justice Department — a Trump-fueled conspiracy theory premised on the idea that one of Bragg’s prosecutors previously worked at the DOJ, and used to suggest, baselessly, that the administration is secretly behind the hush money case.
“It is an absurd situation that multiple prosecutors passed by this rancid ham sandwich of an indictment and Alvin Bragg’s suddenly decides to do it,” Trusty said, “perhaps with the help of a senior adviser who parachuted in from DOJ to help him on this thing.”
