A spokesperson for Trump\u2019s legal team, in a statement, called Hellerstein\u2019s decision \u201cbaseless and lawless\u201d. Within hours, the President\u2019s attorneys filed notice they would appeal.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson\u2019s statement read: \u201cThe supreme court\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
A New York jury convicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, whose allegations of an affair with Trump threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n
He was sentenced, shortly before the start of his second term, to an unconditional discharge, sparing him prison time but leaving his conviction in place. Trump has denied Daniels\u2019s claims and that he committed any crimes.<\/p>\n
Hellerstein, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, has twice denied similar bids from Trump to move the case to federal courts – first after he was indicted; then again after his conviction.<\/p>\n
The judge\u2019s decision came after a federal appeals court sent the question back to Hellerstein last year, saying the judge needed to more carefully consider whether some of the evidence used in Trump\u2019s trial would have been deemed inadmissible under the supreme court\u2019s immunity ruling.<\/p>\n
In his decision, Hellerstein was unequivocal on that point – writing: \u201cThere is no way that discussions regarding hush money payments to cover up the President\u2019s relations with Stormy Daniels could be an official act.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn affair, or a cover-up of an affair, is not within the \u2018outer perimeter\u2019 of the President\u2019s official responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to the matter before Hellerstein, the president has also asked a New York state appellate court to overturn the conviction.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A spokesperson for Trump\u2019s legal team, in a statement, called Hellerstein\u2019s decision \u201cbaseless and lawless\u201d. Within hours, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[58798,1040,26215,1121,15970,1349,2178,49239,287249,14051,4999,71,305,42,293,287248,287250,3958,700,21142,2190,2683,43,15359,2572,54253,38606,22049,29946,61,40,38,41,39,19096,26229,540,6730],"class_list":["post-583594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-argued","tag-bid","tag-broader","tag-case","tag-conviction","tag-court","tag-donald","tag-enjoy","tag-erase","tag-federal","tag-friday","tag-from","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-his","tag-hushmoney","tag-immunities","tag-judge","tag-latest","tag-lawyers","tag-long","tag-move","tag-news","tag-overturn","tag-president","tag-prosecution","tag-rejected","tag-rejects","tag-ruling","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trumps","tag-waited","tag-where","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}