President-elect Donald Trump has moved to dismiss and vacate his criminal indictment and conviction in New York for falsifying business records, citing his presumptive presidential immunity and imminent return to the White House for a second term in office.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg countered that Trump's conviction must remain in place and that he must face sentencing, either before or after his presidency, but conceded that he should no longer face potential time in prison, Reuters reported.

Bragg instead offered a few options that Judge Juan Merchan could adopt to hold Trump accountable for his criminal conviction while still respecting the office of the presidency and its presumptive immunity.

Bragg insists Trump must still face sentencing

Politico reported that DA Bragg filed a lengthy motion of opposition to President-elect Trump's motion to dismiss, roughly half of which was little more than another recitation of the criminal allegations against him and a reiteration of complaints about the language and rhetoric Trump has used about this and other cases and the individuals involved in them.

The main purpose of the filing, however, was to argue that the indictment and conviction must not be dismissed or vacated because Trump must still be held accountable, even as Bragg acknowledged the unlikelihood that Trump would be sentenced to serve time in prison.

"This Court should reject defendant’s motion to 'immediately' dismiss the indictment and vacate the jury’s guilty verdict based on the outcome of the recent presidential election," Bragg wrote in the 81-page motion. "There are no grounds for such relief now, prior to defendant’s inauguration, because President-elect immunity does not exist."

"And even after the inauguration, defendant’s temporary immunity as the sitting President will still not justify the extreme remedy of discarding the jury’s unanimous guilty verdict and wiping out the already-completed phases of this criminal proceeding," he continued. "At most, defendant should receive temporary accommodations during his presidency to prevent this criminal case from meaningfully interfering with his official decision-making.

"But multiple accommodations well short of dismissal and vacatur would satisfy that objective, including a stay of proceedings during his term in office if judgment has not been entered before presidential immunity attaches," Bragg added. "By contrast, defendant’s requested relief would go well beyond what is necessary to protect the presidency and would subvert the compelling public interest in preserving the jury’s unanimous verdict and upholding the rule of law."

Bragg offers a few options for accountability

Later in the motion, DA Bragg proposed a trio of possible "alternative accommodations" Judge Merchan could utilize to hold President-elect Trump accountable without interfering with his presidency, the first of which was merely to impose a four-year stay and delay sentencing until after Trump's term in office expired.

The second option was to treat the case as an "abatement," or as if the defendant had died prior to sentencing and the exhaustion of all appeals, in which all further proceedings are ended but the indictment and conviction remain on the record.

A final proposal was for Merchan to preemptively announce that Trump would face no prison sentence and that his future actions while in office wouldn't be considered when he would eventually face lesser punishments after his term was finished.

Trump team blasts Bragg's proposals

The Associated Press reported that President-elect Trump's attorneys swiftly fired back at DA Bragg's "absurd" proposals, and took particular exception to the abatement-by-death idea, which they likened to asking Judge Merchan to "pretend as if one of the assassination attempts against President Trump had been successful."

They also argued that the other options to delay sentencing until after Trump left office would be an "ongoing threat" for the duration of his term, and said, "To be clear, President Trump will never deviate from the public interest in response to these thuggish tactics. However, the threat itself is unconstitutional."

Prior to that filed response from Trump's attorneys, Reuters reported that Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said, "Today's filing by the Manhattan DA is a pathetic attempt to salvage the remains of an unconstitutional and politically motivated hoax."