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Hellerstein blocks removal
A federal judge again denied President Donald Trump’s effort to get his New York state criminal hush money case moved to federal court, a move Trump sought to make it easier to reverse his conviction.
“District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in a ruling Friday that Trump’s cited grounds were “neither new nor legally sufficient.””
District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in a ruling Friday that Trump’s cited grounds were “neither new nor legally sufficient.”
The decision came after a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directed Hellerstein to reconsider how the Supreme Court’s July 2024 presidential immunity ruling affected the New York case.
Trump is trying to overturn his May 2024 conviction for concealing a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, whose claim of a sexual encounter with him could have upended his 2016 presidential campaign.
Hellerstein’s ruling marked the third time he blocked Trump from having the U.S. District Court in Manhattan seize control of the case from the New York court where he was tried and convicted.
Immunity fight and quotes
The judge’s rejection was tied to how Trump argued the hush money evidence and testimony related to presidential immunity after the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling.
Hellerstein wrote that “Paying hush money to an adult film star or engaging in a cover-up of an embarrassment are not subsumed in presidential immunity,” and he also said “Federal district courts are not certifying clerks.”
Trump’s legal team said it would appeal, calling the decision “baseless and lawless,” and the statement also said the “Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA” should be removed to federal court.
In the background of the jurisdiction fight, the case centered on a payment Trump made through his fixer Michael Cohen to buy Daniels’s silence after she claimed she had an affair with Trump while he was married.
The AP reported that Hellerstein previewed his ruling during oral arguments in February, slamming Trump’s lawyers for legal maneuvers that amounted to taking “two bites at the apple.”
What’s at stake next
The ruling keeps the hush money case in New York state courts as Trump continues challenging his conviction through the state court appellate process, which the AP described as pending.
“blocks President Trump’s quickest path to overturning his 2024 conviction”
Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, and the sentencing judge Juan Merchan later imposed an unconditional discharge with no jail time or fine.
Even with the conviction on the books, the decision leaves Trump’s quickest path to overturning the 2024 conviction blocked, with the New York Times describing the Friday denial as blocking his “quickest path to overturning it.”
The Hill reported that Hellerstein reaffirmed that Trump was too late and that the verdict withstands presidential immunity anyway, while the judge reiterated that the grounds were “neither new nor legally sufficient.”
Trump’s strategy remains focused on removal to federal court under Congress’s allowance for federal officials to move courts when being prosecuted for matters related to “any act under color” of their office, but Hellerstein’s latest decision again refused to transfer the case.