Former President Donald Trump asked a federal court late Thursday to intervene. New York “hush money” criminal caseSeek a way to turn things around His felony conviction And sentencing is postponed indefinitely for next month.
The Republican nominee’s attorneys are now asking a Manhattan federal court to hear the case in state court, arguing that the landmark indictment violates his constitutional rights and runs counter to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.
Trump’s lawyers, who failed in a pretrial attempt last year to move the case to federal court, said moving it now would give him an “unbiased forum free from local animosity” to resolve these issues. They said Trump was the victim of “bias, conflicts of interest and impropriety” in state court.
If the case is transferred to federal court, Trump’s attorneys have said they will ask for the ruling to be overturned and the case to be dismissed on grounds of immunity.
If the case remains in state court and Trump is sentenced as scheduled on September 18 — about seven weeks before Election Day — it would amount to election interference, his attorneys say, and they fear Trump could end up in jail as early voting begins.
Trump’s request on Thursday will be decided by a Manhattan federal judge who previously denied his request to transfer the case, clearing the way for a trial in state court.
“The ongoing litigation will continue to cause direct and irreparable harm to President Trump, a leading candidate for the 2024 presidential election, and to voters in Manhattan and beyond,” Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emile Bove wrote in a 64-page U.S. District Court filing.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which has fought Trump’s previous efforts to prosecute and move cases out of state court, declined to comment. A message seeking comment was left with a spokeswoman for the New York state court system.
erase He was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. The alleged affair with Daniels threatened to derail his 2016 presidential bid.
Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen paid Daniels, and Trump later reimbursed him, with Trump’s company recording the reimbursement as legal fees. Trump maintains the story is false, the reimbursement was for legal work and was properly recorded, and the lawsuits against him are part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” to damage his current presidential campaign.
Falsifying business records can result in up to four years in prison. Other potential penalties include probation or a fine.
Even if Trump’s case is not transferred to federal court, a legal battle may be inevitable. His sentencing is expected to be postponed.It provides a vital respite for him as he navigates the aftermath of his criminal conviction and the final stages of his White House bid. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime.
Separately, the presiding judge, Juan M. Merchant, is considering Trump’s request to delay sentencing until after Election Day on Nov. 5, and to overturn the ruling and dismiss the case based on the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
The Supreme Court, in a ruling issued July 1, limited prosecutions of former presidents for their official acts and restricted prosecutors from presenting official acts as evidence that the president’s unofficial actions were illegal.
Trump’s lawyers argued that prosecutors rushed to trial without waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the president’s immunity, and that the trial was “tainted” by evidence that should not have been allowed under the ruling, including former White House staffers describing how they reacted to reports of Trump’s 2018 tweets and hush-money deals while he was president.
President Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully tried last year to move the case from state court to federal court, asserting presidential immunity.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein rejected Trump’s argument that the hush money indictment was related to official duties, writing in July 2023 that “the evidence suggests that this matter most likely concerned a cover-up of a purely personal matter for the President, namely, an embarrassing incident.”
“The silence payment to an adult film star has no connection to the official conduct of the President. It does not in any way reflect the color of the President’s official duties,” Hellerstein added.
President Trump appealed the ruling, but gave up the fight just before a November 2023 deadline to file a brief explaining why Hellerstein should be overturned.
Trump’s attorneys argued in their filing Thursday that circumstances have changed since they first tried to move the case to federal court. Among other things, they said state prosecutors had previously misled the court by saying the trial was not related to Trump’s official duties or his actions as president.
They also said there was Cohen’s testimony about Trump’s ability to use his pardon power and his response to various investigations into his actions. All of that testimony, they wrote, was related to Trump’s actions as president.
“President Trump is entitled to a federal forum to defend his presidential immunity based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States,” Blanche and Bove wrote. “Once that case is properly dismissed, President Trump will establish that the charges should be dismissed.”
Blanche and Bove also argued that Merchant treated Trump unfairly because Merchant’s daughter is a Democratic political consultant, and that the judge’s ruling put undue pressure on Trump by upholding the media ban.
This month, Merchant rejected Trump’s latest request. He should step down from the case.Trump’s demands were a rehash of “inaccurate and unsubstantiated claims” about his ability to remain impartial, a state appeals court recently upheld.
Blanche and Bove said, “Merchan is poised to jail President Trump in the final weeks of the campaign, and by criticizing New York county proceedings, he has unfairly and unconstitutionally limited the President’s ability to respond to political attacks.”
