United States – Donald Trump’s lawyers sought on Monday to move the case to the federal level, where he was found guilty of covering up hush money paid to a porn star, where the charges could be dropped if he returned to power.
In a brief filed for the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, his lawyers requested to change to federal court again after his U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said no on September 3. In may be convicted as a felon of 34 counts of the crime of document forgery, as reported by Reuters.
Citing Supreme Court Ruling on Presidential Immunity
His lawyers relied on the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court issued on July 1, to the effect that former presidents cannot be held criminally liable for actions undertaken in their capacity as presidents. In the hush money case, they complained that jurors had viewed evidence related to Trump performing presidential functions.
Its legalization argued that the state charges violated the prerogative of the president under the US Constitution.
Potential for Presidential Pardon or Case Dismissal
Trump is the Republican candidate who will be up against the Democratic VP Kamala Harris in the November 5 polls. Thus, in the event of his victory, he may decide to pardon himself for any federal crime or accept that his new Justice Department leadership drops all the criminal cases filed against him in a federal court. State criminal charges, on the other hand, are not within the domain of pardon authority of the president or the justice department.
In United States law, civil or criminal actions brought against a federal official may be transferred to federal court if they concern the performance of his duties in office.
This specifically came from Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who opined that the official-acts evidence “prosecutors used to obtain the grand jury’s indictment and at trial violated the Constitution and imperiled the capacity of all future Presidents to perform that core function.”
Rejection of Motion to Transfer and Appeal Plans
Trump was tried and acquitted in May on charges of producing fake documents to conceal the $130,000 payout he made via Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels, an adult movie actress, for hush money before the 2016 election about a sexual affair she claimed to have had with Trump a decade prior.
Trump refutes the incident with Daniels. He has promised to appeal the verdict after the final judgment on November 26, when he is to be sentenced.
This immunity decision stems from an appeal connected to a federal criminal investigation involving Trump over a bid to cling to power after he lost the November 2020 vote to Biden of the Democratic party while upholding core elements of the presidency to be off-limits in criminal cases about otherwise private conduct.
In the case of Trump’s hush money case, his lawyers have claimed that the high court ruling meant that the case should be dismissed. Trump entered a not-guilty plea in the Manhattan case as well as in the federal election-related case.
Hellerstein rejected Trump’s motion to transfer the hush money case to federal court as it involved “private, informal actions, beyond the scope of presidential powers.”
Awaiting Response and Next Steps
Should the 2nd Circuit find against Trump, he can take the matter to the Supreme Court, a court with a 6-3 conservative bench that has three personnel from his list, as reported by Reuters.
An email to Bragg’s office for comment was not answered at the time of this report. The 2nd Circuit has not given a timeline to Bragg’s office to respond to Trump’s brief.