Trump's lawyers allege juror misconduct in latest bid to get his hush money conviction dismissed

NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyers are alleging that his hush money conviction was tainted by juror misconduct, opening a new front in their fight to overturn the verdict and throw out the historic case.

Trump’s lawyers raised the misconduct claim in court papers made public Tuesday, as Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan weighs a pending defense request to throw out the case in light of his impending return to the White House.

Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in a letter to Merchan that they had “evidence of grave juror misconduct during the trial.”

The details of the allegations were redacted and hidden from public view. Three of the letter’s seven pages were entirely covered in black ink. The letter, dated Dec. 3, was added to the public court docket on Tuesday.

Merchan said in a separate letter Monday that he ordered the reactions both to preserve the integrity of the case and to ensure the safety of jurors, whose names have been kept private.

Blanche and Bove’s letter “consists entirely of unsworn allegations,” Merchan wrote. Allowing them to be filed publicly without redactions “would only serve to undermine the integrity of these proceedings while simultaneously placing the safety of the jurors at grave risk,” he wrote.

“Allegations of juror misconduct should be thoroughly investigated,” Merchan wrote. “However, this Court is prohibited from deciding such claims on the basis of mere hearsay and conjecture.”

Other letters pertaining to the juror misconduct allegation were filed by Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors on Dec. 5 and Dec. 9. They have yet to be made public.

A message seeking comment was left with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the hush money case.

Trump has been fighting for months to reverse his May 30 conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress her claim that they had sex a decade earlier, which he denies. The payment was made shortly before the 2016 election.

On Monday, Merchan rejected Trump’s request to throw out the case on presidential immunity grounds, finding that the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling granting former president’s broad protection from prosecution did not require upending the case.

Trump’s immunity claim was just one of several efforts he and his lawyers have made to get his conviction overturned and the case dismissed.

After Trump won last month’s election, Merchan indefinitely postponed his late November sentencing so both sides could suggest next steps. Trump’s lawyers argued that anything other than immediate dismissal would undermine the transfer of power and cause unconstitutional “disruptions” to the presidency.

Prosecutors, seeking to preserve the verdict, proposed several alternatives.

They included: freezing the case until Trump leaves office in 2029; agreeing that any future sentence won’t include jail time; or treating the case the way some courts do when a defendant dies.

In the last scenario, borrowed from what some states do in such an occurrence, the case would be closed by noting that Trump was convicted but that he wasn’t sentenced and his appeal wasn’t resolved because he took office. Trump’s lawyers branded the concept “absurd.” They also objected to the other suggestions.

Trump, a Republican, takes office Jan. 20. He’s the first former president to be convicted of a felony and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.