Exclusive: Alvin Bragg Doubles Down in Bid To Keep His Stormy Daniels Case Against Trump in Friendly New York Court

The latest effort by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, to keep his hush money case against President Trump in state court underscores how reluctant the prosecutor is to allow the 47th president to move the case to a federal forum. Mr. Trump argues to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, 92, that his appeal of his state criminal convictions for the payments made to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels belongs at the Second United States Appeals Circuit, not New York’s tribunals. He claims that the payments were made under “color of” federal office, the statutory standard for removal. His latest sally was docketed last week. Mr. Bragg, an elected Democrat, maintains that there is no nexus between the payments to Ms. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and the office of the presidency. Mr. Bragg writes that the “conduct that is the basis of the state criminal charges against the defendant — his falsification of private business records — has nothing to do with any federal duties whatsoever.” Judge Hellerstein has twice before denied motions by Mr. Trump to transfer the case to federal court. On both occasions he found that the underlying conduct — the payments to Ms. Clifford — were essentially private in nature. The Second United States Appeals Court, though, ordered Judge Hellerstein to consider the question anew because he omitted “important issues relevant” to the question of venue. Mr. Trump now argues that a Supreme Court ruling, Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, handed down earlier this month, strengthens his argument for removal.Chevron, which concerned lawsuits against oil companies in the Pelican State, does appear to bolster Mr. Trump’s position. The issue was how to interpret the removal statute’s language, which mandates that a federal venue is available for acts “for or relating to any act under color of federal office.” The justices held that the right to removal “sweeps broadly” and is applicable as long as “not tenuous, remote, or peripheral.”The case was decided by an eight to one margin, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson the lone dissent. She writes that the majority adopted “a looser standard.” Mr. Trump’s lawyers write that the “looser standard” that is now Supreme Court precedent “plainly encompasses this case.” Justice Jackson does, though, acknowledge that removal requires a “nexus between the targeted conduct and the federal duties.” The issue of venue was also considered by the state trial judge, Juan Merchan, who presided over the case. He reasoned that even the Supreme Court’s expansive holding in Trump v. United States — that official presidential acts are presumptively immune from prosecution — did not reach Mr. Trump’s conduct here, which was wholly “unofficial” in nature. The president argues, though, that the prosecution presented evidence to the jury that was tied to the office of the president. Mr. Bragg urges Judge Hellerstein to reject the contention that the “introduction of such evidence is enough for removal when — as the defendant does not seriously dispute — the conduct that is the basis of the underlying charges does not have a connection to federal duties.” The district attorney notes that the high court in Trump v. United States allowed for the possibility that the president can speak to the public in an unofficial capacity.A similar question is driving litigation around whether Mr. Trump can be held liable in civil court for the events of January 6, 2021. He is being sued by Democratic lawmakers and police officers who seek to pin the events at the Capitol on the president. Last month Judge Amit Mehta ruled in a 79-page decision that “President Trump has not shown” that his speech at the Ellipse on January 6 can “reasonably can be understood as falling within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duties.”Removal of a lawsuit to federal court from a state one reaches back to the Judiciary Act of 1789, but it was solidified during Reconstruction in the Removal Act of 1875. That law was animated by the belief that a federal office could not secure a fair trial in the tribunals of the former Confederacy. Mr. Trump hopes that a federal court will be less hostile to his claims than one convened under the aegis of deeply Democratic New York.Mr. Trump’s efforts to gain access to federal court are unfolding alongside his appeal of his 34 felony convictions within the New York State system. Mr. Bragg’s case remains the only one of the four criminal ones that were arrayed against Mr. Trump that resulted in “guilty” verdicts.

Exclusive: Alvin Bragg Doubles Down in Bid To Keep His Stormy Daniels Case Against Trump in Friendly New York Court

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