Judge Rejects Trump’s Attempt to Move Hush Money Case to Federal Court

A federal judge declined to move President Trump’s hush money case to federal court, keeping the conviction.

Despite arguments for presidential immunity, the judge ruled that the case involved personal matters, so it didn’t apply.

Trump’s legal strategy now returns to the state level for the next steps.

As the pieces move on this politically-charged courtroom chessboard, I think the President’s opponents are walking into a trap.

Federal judge rejects Donald Trump's request to intervene in wake of hush money conviction (from @AP) https://t.co/2MkPpPpaMH

— CATHERINE STEVENS (@CNKDSSRS4) September 4, 2024

CBS News reports:

A federal judge on Tuesday swiftly rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to intervene in his New York hush money criminal case, spurning the former president’s attempt at an end-run around the state court where he was convicted and is set to be sentenced in two weeks.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s ruling — just hours after Trump’s lawyers asked him to weigh the move — upends the Republican presidential nominee’s plan to move the case to federal court so that he could seek to have his conviction overturned in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling.

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Hellerstein, echoing his denial of Trump’s pretrial bid to move the case, said the defense failed to meet the high burden of proof for changing jurisdiction and that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records involved his personal life, not official actions that the Supreme Court ruled are immune from prosecution.

In a four-page ruling, Hellerstein wrote that nothing about the high court’s July 1 ruling affected his previous conclusion that hush money payments at issue in Trump’s case “were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.”

Trump’s lawyers first asked the federal court to intervene last week, but their paperwork was kicked back because they hadn’t gotten the required clearance from Hellerstein to file it. Hours after they submitted papers Tuesday requesting Hellerstein’s permission to proceed, he issued his ruling denying it.

Before dissecting Trump’s immunity claims, Hellerstein dispatched quickly of the defense’s oft-repeated claims that trial judge Juan M. Merchan had treated Trump unfairly — subjecting him to a gag order and refusing to delay the trial until after the Supreme Court ruled — because Merchan’s daughter is a Democratic political consultant.

Hellerstein sidestepped a defense complaint that Trump’s state court trial had been plagued by “bias, conflicts of interest, and appearances of impropriety,” writing that he “does not have jurisdiction to hear Mr. Trump’s arguments concerning the propriety of the New York trial.”

A Trump campaign spokesperson suggested he would seek to appeal Tuesday’s ruling. Trump and his lawyers “will continue to fight to move this Hoax into federal court where it should be put out of its misery once and for all,” spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Trump’s case, declined comment. Earlier Tuesday, the office sent a letter to Merchan objecting to Trump’s effort to delay post-trial decisions in the case while he was seeking to have the U.S. District Court in Manhattan step in.

Here’s a friendly reminder regarding the judge:

There are 24 sitting judges in NY county, and Merchan is an "acting" judge. He's not even on that list!

They're assigned cases randomly, so it's STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE that this judge was assigned to the Trump Organization case, the Hush money case & the Steve Bannon Case!👇 pic.twitter.com/rQJwaIMz9e

— Michelle #FKH (@MichelleRM68) May 30, 2024