Trump loses longshot bid to challenge hush money conviction in federal court
NEW YORK — A federal judge on Tuesday denied Donald Trump’s latest longshot effort to challenge his criminal conviction in the New York hush money case.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein shot down a request from Trump’s lawyers to move the case out of state court, where Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a payment to a porn star. Trump sought last week to transfer the case to federal court, where he hoped to overturn the guilty verdict.
As part of that transfer bid, he also tried to postpone his Sept. 18 sentencing date.
In a four-page ruling, Hellerstein wrote that Trump hadn’t met the legal standard for moving the case to federal court.
Hellerstein declared that, as a federal judge, he does not have jurisdiction to evaluate Trump’s complaints that he wasn’t given a fair trial in the state court system, which is independent from the federal judiciary.
“It would be highly improper for this Court to evaluate the issues of bias, unfairness or error in the state trial,” wrote Hellerstein, an appointee of Bill Clinton. “Those are issues for the state appellate courts.”
Hellerstein also rejected Trump’s argument that his conviction should be overturned in light of the Supreme Court’s July decision concerning presidential immunity for official acts. The judge pointed to a ruling last year in which he denied an earlier bid by Trump to move the case to federal court. In that ruling, Hellerstein concluded that the conduct at the heart of the case — Trump’s hush money arrangement with Stormy Daniels — was unrelated to Trump’s official duties as president.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Hellerstein said he remained firm in that judgment.
“Nothing in the Supreme Court’s opinion affects my previous conclusion that the hush money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority,” Hellerstein wrote.
Trump’s unusual post-conviction bid to transfer the case is just one of several efforts the Republican presidential nominee has mounted in recent weeks to derail the case.
Justice Juan Merchan — the New York state court judge who presided over the trial — is currently weighing requests from Trump to toss out the verdict or postpone the sentencing hearing until after Election Day.
The maximum sentence for falsifying business records is four years in prison, though some experts believe a much lighter sentence — such as a fine, community service or probation — is more likely in Trump’s case. Any sentence could be put on hold while Trump appeals.
