President Donald Trump loses again in bid to erase his hush money
conviction
[August 29, 2026]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Friday once again spurned Donald
Trump’s effort to erase his hush money conviction, rejecting the
president’s bid to move the state court case to federal court and have
it dismissed on presidential immunity grounds.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said Trump's reasons for renewing his request
were “neither new nor legally sufficient,” particularly his claims that
trial testimony by former aides and a lawyer, along with his Twitter
statements, infringe on presidential immunity.
“They do not; paying hush money to an adult film star or engaging in a
cover-up of an embarrassment are not subsumed in presidential immunity,”
the judge said, referring to the $130,000 payoff to adult film actor
Stormy Daniels.
At one point, Hellerstein noted that Trump's lawyers thought it was his
job to merely certify the record in the state trial court to the 2nd
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Federal district courts are not certifying clerks,” the judge wrote.
It is the third time Hellerstein has blocked Trump from having the U.S.
District Court in Manhattan seize control of the case from the New York
court where he was tried and convicted.
By midafternoon Friday, Trump's legal team had notified the lower court
it was appealing the ruling, which a spokesperson for the team called
“baseless and lawless.”
“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,” a statement
issued on behalf of the legal team said. "President Trump will be filing
a powerful appeal, and will continue defeating Democrat weaponization at
every turn.”
The guilty verdict, reached in May 2024 while Trump was between terms,
made him the first former — and now current — U.S. president to be
convicted of a crime. Trump is also challenging his conviction through
the state court appellate process, which is pending.
Hellerstein’s decision came after the 2nd Circuit last year ordered him
to reconsider his prior denial. The judge previewed his ruling during
oral arguments in February, slamming Trump’s lawyers for legal maneuvers
that amounted to taking “two bites at the apple.”
State prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case centered on a payment to Stormy Daniels
Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying
business records to conceal the hush money payment to Daniels, whose
claim of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier had threatened
to upend his 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump was sentenced to an unconditional discharge, which left his
conviction intact but spared him any punishment. He had long denied
Daniels’ claim and said he did nothing wrong. He has sought to get the
conviction overturned both by attempting to move the case to federal
court and through the appeals process in state court, which is pending.
Hellerstein rejected Trump’s requests to move the case twice before. The
first was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment. The second was after
Trump’s trial, as his lawyers sought to nix his conviction in the wake
of the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling that presidents and
ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts and prosecutors
can’t use official acts as evidence that unofficial actions were
illegal.
[to top of second column]
|
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to present the
Congressional Space Medal of Honor to Artemis II crew members,
Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, at Johnson Space Center in Houston. (AP
Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Trump appealed Hellerstein’s post-trial ruling and, last November,
the 2nd Circuit ordered the judge to reconsider his decision,
finding that he had failed to consider “important issues relevant”
to the president’s request to move the case.
A three-judge appellate panel said it expressed no view on how he
should rule but instructed Hellerstein to closely review evidence
that Trump claimed was related to official acts and whether Trump
could argue those actions were taken as part of his White House
duties.
On Friday, Hellerstein wrote: “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. An affair, or a
cover-up of an affair, is not within the ‘outer perimeter’ of the
President’s official responsibilities.”
The judges also instructed Hellerstein to determine if Trump had
“diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and
whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump
has been convicted and sentenced in state court.
The judge questioned the Trump legal team’s strategy
During oral arguments in February, Hellerstein took issue with the
Trump legal team’s decision-making after the Supreme Court ruling.
Instead of immediately seeking to move the case to federal court, he
noted, Trump’s lawyers first asked the trial judge in state court,
Juan Merchan, to throw out the verdict on immunity grounds.
Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an
arraignment, but a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. has
ruled that exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.
Trump, a Republican, did not attend the arguments.
Trump lawyer Jeffrey Wall argued that prosecutors rushed to trial
instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity
decision and that Trump’s legal team was crunched for time after the
high court’s ruling because his sentencing was scheduled for just 10
days later.
Trump’s lawyers did not ask Hellerstein to intervene until nearly
two months later, while their request to Merchan was still pending.
The judge called that a “strategic decision” and suggested that by
going to the state court first, Trump’s lawyers cost him the right
to pursue remedies in federal court.
In his written ruling Friday, Hellerstein said Trump was asking for
a “'second bite at the apple,' a result the law disfavors.”
The judge added that “Trump’s delay in filing for removal
constitutes a ‘quintessential strategic decision,’ and the ‘fact
that he later came to view that decision as a poor one is not
sufficient, by itself, to establish cause.’”
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
