Trump Attorneys Move to Toss Federal Election Case for ‘Vindictive’ Prosecution

Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media during the third day of his civil fraud trial in New York on Oct.4, 2023. Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team filed a flurry of motions on Oct. 23 to dismiss the government’s 2020 election case against him for multiple reasons, including constitutional violations and “selective and vindictive prosecution.”

In one of the four motions filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, President Trump’s attorneys noted that the prosecution acknowledged in the indictment that he had a right to speak publicly about the election—including his belief that the election was stolen.

“Nonetheless, in an astonishing display of doublethink, the prosecution simultaneously claims that President Trump—simply by speaking his mind and petitioning for a redress of grievances—also somehow conspired to ‘defraud the United States,’ ‘oppress rights,’ and ‘obstruct an official proceeding,’” they wrote.

The attorneys charged that the indictment seeks to criminalize political speech protected by the First Amendment and that their client “lacked fair notice that his advocacy in this instance could be criminalized.”

In another motion, the 45th president’s legal team contended that the case should be dismissed because the indictment fails to state an offense.

“Targeting an audience other than this court, the prosecution’s indictment in this matter rants endlessly about President Trump’s politics and—in a shockingly un-American display of authoritarianism—accuses him of crimes for having and expressing the ‘wrong’ opinions,” his attorneys noted.

They added that while the indictment asserts that President Trump violated several statutes, it fails to explain how “beyond simply saying he has while regurgitating the statutory language.”

That tactic, they argued, was an effort to distract from the fact that President Trump’s actions did not violate any of the specified laws.

Lastly, President Trump’s legal team charged that the prosecution was politically targeting him at the behest of President Joe Biden, citing his remarks at a Nov. 9, 2022, press conference.

“Less than a week before President Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency in the 2024 election, Biden used the White House itself to tell anyone listening that he was ‘making sure’ that President Trump ‘does not become the next president again,’” they wrote.

“Three days after President Trump formally announced his candidacy, the Special Counsel was put in place as part of a flawed effort to insulate Biden and his supporters from scrutiny of their obvious and illegal bias,” they continued.

‘Inflammatory Allegations’

A fourth motion filed by President Trump’s legal team seeks to strike from the indictment “inflammatory allegations” surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, which they held to be irrelevant.

The indictment, they noted, does not charge the former president with responsibility for the activity that occurred at the Capitol that day, which began while he was still delivering a speech on the Ellipse.

“Allegations in the indictment relating to these actions, when President Trump has not been charged with responsibility for them, is highly prejudicial and inflammatory because members of the jury may wrongfully impute fault to President Trump for these actions,” the attorneys wrote.

The 45-page indictment charges the former president with criminal conspiracies to defraud the United States, to obstruct the certification of votes for President Biden on Jan. 6, 2021, and against citizens’ right to vote, as well as one count of obstruction of an official proceeding.

As with the other criminal cases he is currently fighting, President Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.