Trump's lawyers ask Judge Merchan to overturn his conviction in Stormy Daniels hush money case

Lawyers for President-elect Donald Trump formally asked Judge Juan Merchan, of New York, to vacate his criminal conviction for a hush payment, arguing that continuing with the case would present "disruptions to the institution of the Presidency."

In a court filing made public Tuesday, Trump's team wrote to Judge Merchan stating that anything short of overturning the conviction would be a major obstacle to the orderly transition of power and thus a blow to the "national mandate" the president-elect received from voters in November.

In the brief, Trump's lawyers also mentioned the recent pardon by President Joe Biden of his son, Hunter Biden, previously convicted on tax and gun possession charges.

"President Biden asserted that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ and ‘treated differently,’" Trump's legal team wrote before accusing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of engaging fully in the kind of political sideshow "that President Biden condemned."

Trump's Manhattan case involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels has caused a stir from the start. According to the prosecution, the president-elect concealed a $130,000 payment to "silence" Daniels, who was about to blow the whistle on an alleged affair with the Republican during the 2016 presidential campaign. Bragg's team, using this payment that was declared as 'legal expenses,' argued that Trump violated business records law and furthermore election law.

Eventually, Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records and became the first convicted former president in the country's history.

However, many legal experts criticized the prosecution and Judge Merchan, because they considered that the legal theory behind the indictment was, at the very least, "dubious" and confusing, so the case appeared to be tainted by the political motivations of prosecutor Bragg.

For example, Jed Handelsman Shugerman, a law professor at Boston University, wrote an essay for the New York Times explaining that prosecutor Bragg charged Trump with falsifying business records, a crime that is considered a misdemeanor, but to elevate it to a criminal case the Manhattan District Attorney's Office had to split hairs to charge the former president with possible violations of federal election law and state tax fraud.

Shugerman claimed that Bragg's case was a historic mistake and "an embarrassment of prosecutorial ethics and apparent selective prosecution."

Now, following the Trump team's request to Judge Merchan, Manhattan prosecutors will have until Dec. 9 to respond. However, they have already said they will fight any effort to dismiss the case.

Bragg's team also previously announced that they are willing to delay sentencing until after Trump's second term ends in 2029. But in Monday's filing, Trump's lawyers dismissed the idea of delaying sentencing until Trump is out of office as a "ridiculous suggestion."

Attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who represented Trump during the trial, signed the letter and also sent a message to Bragg and his team, asserting that all prosecutors assigned to the case have a new opportunity to "end the deteriorating conditions in the city and protect its residents from violent crime."

Exonerating Trump, they argued, would also allow him to "devote all of his energy to protecting the Nation."

The final word, no doubt, will rest with Merchan, who has a wide range of options to pursue the case or close it.