A federal judge on Tuesday quickly rejected former President Donald Trump request to participate in which New York hush money crime casespurning the trial of the former president in the back-run around the state court where he was convicted and set to be sentenced in two weeks.
US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s ruling – just hours after Trump’s lawyers asked him to consider the move – disrupted the Republican presidential candidate’s plans to move the case to federal court so he could seek to have the conviction overturned after the US Supreme Court. presidential immunity rule.
Hellerstein, who objected to Trump’s pretrial bid to move the case, said the defense failed to meet a high burden of proof to change jurisdiction and that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records was part of his personal life, not an official act as ruled by the Supreme Court. immunity from prosecution.
In a four-page ruling, Hellerstein wrote that nothing about the high court’s July 1 ruling affected its earlier conclusion that the money payments at issue in Trump’s case “were private, unofficial acts, outside of executive authority.”
Trump’s lawyers first asked a federal court to intervene last week, but the documents were withdrawn because they had not received the necessary permission from Hellerstein to file them. Hours after submitting a paper Tuesday asking Hellerstein for permission to proceed, he issued a ruling denying it.
Before dissecting Trump’s immunity claim, Hellerstein quickly dismissed the defense’s oft-repeated claim that the 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 of Merchan’s daughter. . as a Democratic political consultant.
Hellerstein sidestepped the defense complaint that the trial of Trump’s state court has been plagued by “bias, conflicts of interest, and the appearance of impropriety,” writing that “it does not have jurisdiction to listen to Mr. Trump’s arguments about the propriety of the New York trial.”
A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign suggested he would appeal Tuesday’s decision. Trump and his lawyers “will continue to fight to move this Hoax to the federal courts where it needs to be put out of its misery once and for all,” spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the Trump case, declined to comment. Earlier Tuesday, the office sent a letter to Merchan objecting to Trump’s efforts to delay a post-trial ruling in the case while he sought to have the U.S. District Court in Manhattan intervene.
Merchan is expected to rule on two key defense requests: Trump’s call for a judge to delay sentencing on September 18 until after the November election, and their request the judge overturned the conviction and dismissed the case after the Supreme Court ruling.
Merchan said he will rule Sept. 16 on Trump’s motion to overturn the ruling. His decision to suspend sentencing is expected in the coming days.
Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of felony for falsifying business records to hide $130,000 in hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose cheating allegations threaten to disrupt his 2016 presidential run. Trump denied the claims and said he was innocent. His lawyers argued that the case was tainted because it violated Trump’s constitutional rights and that the verdict was violated by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation or fines.
Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump’s sentencing as scheduled, just two days after Merchan’s expected immunity decision, would not give him enough time to consider his next steps, including a possible appeal, if the judge orders him to uphold the verdict.
He also argued that the September 18 sentence, about seven weeks before Election Day, would amount to election interference. In a court filing last week, they argued that Trump could be jailed while the primaries are underway.
Prosecutors did not specify whether they would delay sentencing, deferring to Merchan’s “appropriate post-trial schedule.” In the letter Tuesday, he said he was open to a schedule that would allow “adequate time” to judge Trump’s motion to overturn the verdict while also punishing him “without unreasonable delay.”
Merchan last month rejected Trump’s latest request that he recuse himself from the case, saying Trump’s request was a “rehash of inaccurate and unsubstantiated claims” about his ability to remain impartial. State appeals court recently complied with the gag order.
“It would be highly inappropriate for this Court to assess the issue of bias, unfairness or error in the state’s trial,” wrote Hellerstein. “That’s a matter for state appeals courts.”
However, he noted, Trump can pursue a state appeal or request a review from the US Supreme Court, which ruled on immunity from prosecution of former presidents for official acts and limited prosecutors to point to official acts as evidence that the president’s unofficial acts were illegal. .
Trump’s lawyers argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, and that prosecutors erred by showing the jury evidence that should not have been allowed under the ruling, such as former White House staffers describing Trump’s reaction to the news. coverage of quiet money deals and tweets sent during the presidency in 2018.
