Trump loses bid to transfer New York hush money case to federal court
A federal judge on Friday rejected an effort by President Donald Trump to transfer to federal court the New York state criminal hush money case that ended with his conviction.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein's ruling was the third time he had denied Trump's request that his criminal case be handled in U.S.
District Court in Manhattan. A federal appeals court had ordered Hellerstein to reconsider his most recent denial of Trump's effort in light of a July 1, 2024, U.S. Supreme Court decision, in a federal criminal case in which Trump was a defendant, that said presidents had at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all their official acts, while making clear "there is no immunity for unofficial acts."
Hellerstein on Friday said that Trump had waited too long after his May 2024 conviction and the subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling to seek removal of the case to federal court. Later Friday, Trump's lawyers filed a notice of appeal of Hellerstein's ruling, which would be heard by the 2nd Circuit U.S.
Court of Appeals. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan state Supreme Court related to a hush money payment to keep porn star Stormy Daniels quiet before the 2016 election about her claims of having had sex with him.
Trump, who denied Daniels' allegation, was sentenced in January 2025 to unconditional discharge, shortly before being sworn in to a second nonconsecutive term in the White House.
Trump sought the removal as part of a strategy to overturn his conviction on the grounds that evidence allowed to be introduced at trial included conversations and observations involving presidential aides, which his lawyers argued should have been kept out because they related to official conduct.
"There is no way that discussions regarding hush money payments to cover up the President's relations with Stormy Daniels could be an official act," Hellerstein wrote.
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In July, another Manhattan federal court judge ordered the release of about $5.8 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll to satisfy a civil trial verdict holding Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her. In April, a federal appeals court declined to reconsider a decision upholding another, $83.3 million civil judgment in Carroll's favor against Trump for defaming her.
In April, a federal judge dismissed Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, while allowing him to amend his civil complaint. Hellerstein, in his ruling Friday, also said Trump had no legal grounds to remove the case from state court after he was convicted and sentenced.
"He cannot play one court against another; he cannot seek victory in one court, and then, when it becomes apparent that the court will rule against him, seek to remove his case to another court," Hellerstein said in his ruling.
Hellerstein also wrote that the evidence introduced at trial did not infringe on presidential immunity, and Trump had not demonstrated that he was prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney's office for conduct related to his having been president. "Paying hush money to an adult film star or engaging in a cover-up of an embarrassment are not subsumed in presidential immunity," Hellerstein said.
Trump is separately appealing his conviction in the New York state appeals court system.
A spokesman for Trump's legal team, in a statement on Hellerstein's ruling, said, "The Supreme Court's historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be removed to federal court, and immediately overturned and dismissed."
"President Trump has already prevailed in this case at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals," the spokesman said, referring to that court's prior order to Hellerstein to reconsider the transfer request. "And today's baseless and lawless decision contradicts that correct ruling," the spokesman said. "President Trump will be filing a powerful appeal, and will continue defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn."