{"id":93365,"date":"2026-01-08T05:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T05:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/93365\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T05:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T05:26:09","slug":"manhattan-da-opposes-trumps-attempt-to-move-hush-money-appeal-to-federal-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/93365\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan DA opposes Trump’s attempt to move hush money appeal to federal court"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Manhattan district attorney’s office says a federal judge should once again reject President Donald Trump’s attempt to move his criminal hush money<\/a> case into federal court because the accusation of falsifying business records to cover up a payment to silence a porn actress was “based on wholly private, unofficial conduct.”<\/p>\n

The argument came in a new court filing Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The judge, Alvin Hellerstein, previously turned down<\/a> Trump’s attempt to move the case<\/a>, but was ordered in November by a federal appeals court to take a second look<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n

Alex Wong\/Getty Images – PHOTO: President Donald Trump addresses a House Republican retreat at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, January 6, 2026 in Washington.<\/p>\n

Timeline: Manhattan DA’s Stormy Daniels hush money case against Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\n

Hellerstein is the same judge<\/a> assigned to the narco-terrorism conspiracy case against deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n

Trump was convicted<\/a> in 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a payment to Stormy Daniels meant to keep her from discussing claims of a long-denied affair before the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

In appealing his conviction, Trump said prosecutors relied on evidence a U.S. Supreme Court decision<\/a> on presidential immunity rendered off limits. <\/p>\n

Appeals court revives Trump’s effort to remove hush money case to federal court<\/a><\/p>\n

“Time has not improved defendant’s arguments,” assistant district attorney John Hughes wrote in the filing Wednesday. \u00a0“This Court already found no good cause for defendant to remove this case a second time. It should reach the same conclusion again.”<\/p>\n

Trump was sentenced to an unconditional discharge a year ago<\/a> — allowing him to avoid prison, fines or probation but cementing the conviction — and prosecutors said the “advanced stage” of the case weighs against moving it into federal court.<\/p>\n

Trump cannot pardon himself for a state conviction.<\/p>\n

Trump’s attorney asks judges to move appeal of NY hush money conviction to federal court<\/a><\/p>\n

Prosecutors also argued the state charges were based on private conduct before Trump was elected.<\/p>\n

“The Second Circuit has now confirmed that federal-officer removal requires a connection between the charged criminal conduct and an act under color of office, and there was no such connection here,” Hughes said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Manhattan district attorney’s office says a federal judge should once again reject President Donald Trump’s attempt to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[43999,43029,153,20736,3332,3534,25860,43998,75,84,83,9,24,15862,63],"class_list":["post-93365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-34-felony-counts","tag-alvin-hellerstein","tag-donald-trump","tag-falsifying-business-records","tag-federal-appeals-court","tag-federal-court","tag-federal-judge","tag-hush-money","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}