Donald Trump’s legal team is seeking to have his hush-money case moved to federal court just weeks before he’s due to be sentenced in the matter by a New York judge.
The former president’s attorneys filed a request to the U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Thursday, writing that the prosecution of Trump was unconstitutional and that the case is in conflict with the Supreme Court’s June decision on presidential immunity. “The ongoing proceedings will continue to cause direct and irreparable harm to President Trump — the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential election — and voters located far beyond Manhattan,” Todd Blanche and Emil Bove asserted in their 60-page filing.
This is just the latest attempt by Trump to delay his sentencing or overturn his conviction entirely. In May, a New York jury convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records, agreeing with prosecutors that he intentionally mischaracterized payments he made to cover up a years-old affair ahead of the 2016 election.
After the Supreme Court ruled in late June that past and current presidents could not be prosecuted for official acts taken while in office, Trump’s team filed a motion challenging his conviction. Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case, agreed to weigh the impact of the decision and issue his own judgment on the merits of Trump’s immunity argument. His ruling is expected by September 16, just two days before Merchan is due to hand down his sentence to Trump.
Trump already attempted to move the case into federal court even before the proceedings began. Last year, his legal team argued that the payments Trump made were related to Trump’s conduct while he was in office, meaning that the case should be heard in federal court. U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who will likely hear Trump’s newest request as well, denied the motion. He ruled that Trump’s actions were not considered official acts, giving a potential preview to how he might rule on Thursday’s filing. “The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was purely a personal item of the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” he wrote in his decision.
The Supreme Court’s decision continues to influence the pending legal cases against Trump. Aileen Cannon, a Trump-friendly federal judge in Florida, dismissed the federal government’s classified-documents case against him, citing the ruling. Special counsel Jack Smith has since appealed her decision. He has also submitted a revised indictment in his election-subversion case against Trump in an attempt to address the issues raised by the nation’s highest court.
