A federal judge on Tuesday swiftly rejected Donald Trump’s request to intervene in his New York criminal case of buying money to silence his supporters, snubbing the former president’s attempt to overturn his conviction before his sentencing in two weeks.
Echoing his denial of Trump’s pretrial attempt to move the case, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the defense failed to meet the high burden of proof to change venue and that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records involved his personal life, not official actions that the Supreme Court has ruled are immune from prosecution.
In a four-page ruling, the judge wrote that nothing in the high court’s July 1 ruling affected his earlier conclusion that the payments to silence Trump “were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.”
Hellerstein sidestepped a defense complaint that Trump’s state court trial had been riddled with “bias, conflicts of interest and appearances of impropriety,” writing that he “has no jurisdiction to hear Trump’s arguments about the propriety of the New York trial.”
The judge’s ruling comes after Trump’s lawyers asked the Manhattan court to remove the case from the state court where it was tried Thursday night.
Pictured: Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump waves to supporters after a campaign rally at a town hall on August 29, 2024 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. A federal judge on Tuesday denied Trump’s request to intervene in his New York criminal case over bribery
They argued that the landmark proceedings violated their client’s constitutional rights and ran counter to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.
Separately on Tuesday, the office sent a letter to trial judge Juan M. Merchan objecting to Trump’s effort to delay posttrial decisions in the case while he sought intervention by the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Merchan is expected to rule soon on two key defense requests: Trump’s request that the judge delay his Sept. 18 sentencing until after the November election, and his request that the judge overturn his conviction and dismiss the case in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Merchan has said he will rule on Trump’s motion to overturn the verdict on Sept. 16. His decision on the sentencing stay is expected in the coming days.
Trump’s lawyers argue that sentencing Trump as scheduled, just two days after Merchan’s expected immunity ruling, would not give him enough time to weigh next steps, including a possible appeal, if the judge decides to uphold the verdict.
They also argued that a sentencing on Sept. 18, roughly seven weeks before Election Day, would amount to election interference. In a court filing last week, they raised the possibility that Trump could be sent to prison just as early voting gets underway.
Prosecutors have not decided whether to delay sentencing, leaving it up to Merchán to set an “appropriate post-trial timetable.” In their letter Tuesday, they said they were open to a timetable that would allow “adequate time” to decide Trump’s motion to overturn the verdict while still sentencing him “without unreasonable delay.”
Trump’s lawyers first asked the federal court to intervene last week, but their filing was rejected because they had not obtained the necessary authorization from Hellerstein to file it.
Former President Donald Trump awaits the start of proceedings on the second day of jury selection in Manhattan criminal court, April 16, 2024, in New York.
Former US President Donald Trump (center) gestures to the media and crowd outside Trump Tower after a jury found him guilty on all 34 charges in his criminal trial in New York.
Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels (pictured)
Hours after they filed papers Tuesday asking Hellerstein for permission to proceed, he issued his ruling denying them.
Before addressing Trump’s immunity claims, Hellerstein quickly dismissed the defense’s repeated claims that Merchan had treated Trump unfairly (by placing him under a gag order and refusing to delay the trial until after the Supreme Court ruled) because Merchan’s daughter is a Democratic political consultant.
Last month, Merchán rejected Trump’s latest request that he recuse himself from the case, saying Trump’s lawsuit was a rehash “riddled with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims” about his ability to remain impartial. A state appeals court recently upheld the gag order.
“It would be highly inappropriate for this Court to evaluate questions of bias, unfairness or error in the state trial,” Hellerstein wrote. “Those are issues for state appellate courts to resolve.”
Instead, he noted, Trump can file a state appeal or seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court, whose immunity ruling bars prosecutions of former presidents for official acts and restricts prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that prosecutors rushed to trial rather than wait for the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, and that prosecutors erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under the ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the defendants’ hush-money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.
Protesters hold signs and flags in front of Manhattan Criminal Court in May.
Trump was found guilty in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to disrupt his 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels and was later reimbursed by Trump, whose company recorded the reimbursements as legal expenses.
The former president maintains the stories were false, that the reimbursements were for legal work and were recorded correctly, and that the case against him was part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” intended to damage his current presidential campaign.
Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison. Other possible penalties include probation or a fine.
Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime.
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