Trump Presses Effort to Delay NY Sentencing With Federal Appeal

Donald Trump appealed a ruling that prevents him from moving his New York hush money case to federal court, pressing ahead with a bid to delay his Sept. 18 sentencing until well after the November presidential election.

The former president late Tuesday filed a notice of appeal after US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan ruled he didn’t have jurisdiction over the state case, in which Trump was convicted in May. Hellerstein’s ruling is a setback for Trump, who has repeatedly sought to delay the sentencing.

Trump argues that the US Supreme Court’s landmark July ruling that presidents have broad immunity from criminal charges over official conduct meant his conviction should be dismissed, even though the hush money case related to his actions just before his 2016 election victory. He has further contended that the issue should be decided by a federal court.

The former president argues the New York trial was tainted by testimony and other evidence that would have been barred under the Supreme Court’s immunity standard, while Manhattan prosecutors have said the high court ruling should have no impact on the jury verdict.

The 78-year-old billionaire faces as long as four years behind bars, though a far shorter sentence or even probation is also possible. It’s one of four prosecutions Trump is facing as he campaigns to return to the White House, including a federal case over his alleged conspiracy to overturn the result of the 2020 election and incite a deadly riot at the Capitol. He denies wrongdoing in all of them.

Read More: Trump Prepares Next Round of Attacks on 2020 Election Indictment

Hellerstein, who last year rejected a previous Trump bid to transfer the case to federal court, said the high court hadn’t altered his view.

“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 said in his decision. “Private schemes with private actors, unconnected to any statutory or constitutional authority or function of the executive, are considered unofficial acts.”

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the former president’s legal team “will continue to fight to move this hoax into federal court where it should be put out of its misery once and for all.”

Moving the case to federal court would create a faster route for Trump to appeal his conviction to the Supreme Court. It would also give him an opportunity — if he wins the election — to order the Justice Department to drop the case, a power he doesn’t have over state cases.

New York state Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, will also consider the immunity argument. He has said he will rule by Sept. 16 on Trump’s motion to overturn his conviction.

The former president was convicted in May of falsifying business records tied to a scheme to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public just before the 2016 election. Daniels said she was paid to stay quiet about a sexual encounter she had with Trump a decade earlier.

(Updates with Trump’s notice of appeal)

To contact the reporters on this story:
Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net;
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg, Steve Stroth

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