Judge denies Trump’s request to move criminal case to federal court
NEW YORK — A federal judge in Manhattan denied an effort by Donald Trump to move his already adjudicated state criminal case to the federal courts Tuesday, rejecting his claims of presidential immunity and brushing aside his allegation of bias.
In late May, a jury convicted the former president on 34 felony counts of falsifying records to cover up hush-money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who had threatened to go public with her account of a one-night sexual encounter in 2006. A state judge, Juan M. Merchan, has scheduled his sentencing for Sept. 18, though Trump has asked him to delay it until after the presidential election.
In a four-page decision Monday, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of U.S. District Court in Manhattan said he could not evaluate Trump’s claims of bias, saying those were issues for the state courts. But he said that Trump’s claims that he should have immunity from criminal prosecution — based on a recent Supreme Court decision affirming such protection for “official acts” — were groundless.
He noted that “hush-money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.”
The denial by Hellerstein is a loss in Trump’s persistent efforts to escape the consequences of the verdict that a Manhattan jury handed down in May, which could result in a sentence of probation or up to four years in prison for the former president.
The sentencing is scheduled for less than seven weeks before Election Day, during the final sprint in the race to become the 47th president, which pits Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris.
The former president’s efforts to stave off sentencing have coincided with a tightening in that race, with Harris gaining ground on — and sometimes surpassing — Trump in many polls, both at a national level and in all-important swing states.
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said it would “continue to fight to move this Hoax into federal court” and attacked the pending sentencing, saying the criminal case “should be put out of its misery once and for all.”
“There should be no sentencing in this Election Interference Witch Hunt,” Cheung said, adding that “all of the other Harris-Biden Hoaxes, should be dismissed.”
In mid-August, Trump’s legal team asked Merchan to delay his sentencing until after the election, arguing that doing so would “would reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings.”
Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office — which obtained the conviction of Trump, the first of an American president — deferred to the judge on that request, opening the possibility that such a delay could be granted.
Merchan has already agreed to delay the sentencing once, after the Supreme Court ruled in early July that presidents had broad immunity from criminal prosecution for acts that were within the scope of their duties.
On Sept. 16, just two days before the scheduled sentencing, Merchan is expected to rule on a separate motion by Trump’s legal team seeking to reverse his conviction on the basis of the Supreme Court decision.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office have argued that the Supreme Court’s decision had “no bearing on his prosecution.”
In his decision Monday, Hellerstein suggested that Trump’s plea for the state case to be moved to federal court was also an implicit request to delay his sentence.
“This request is improper and outside the district court’s jurisdiction,” the judge wrote in a footnote.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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