Exclusive: Manhattan DA Defends Hush Money Convictions in Stormy Daniels Case Against Trump’s Appellate Onslaught

A new brief from the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, aims to preserve the prosecutor’s conviction of President Trump on 34 criminal counts for hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. The contents of Mr. Bragg’s mammoth 167-page brief, which is under seal, are being reported exclusively by The New York Sun. The brief was filed last week in New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, an intermediate appeals tribunal. In it Mr. Bragg writes that “Donald J. Trump orchestrated a conspiracy to defraud the American public and government regulators and then covered up that crime by repeating a series of lies in the business records of the Trump Organization.”The payments were allegedly made to Ms. Daniels to buy her silence about a sexual encounter she claims occurred between her and Mr. Trump at a Lake Tahoe golf course in 2006, when he was newly married to his wife Melania. Mr. Trump denies that the two ever had sex. Ms. Daniels says she is “ashamed” of the encounter. The convictions are the only ones secured by prosecutors across the four criminal cases levied against Mr. Trump. In 2024 a Manhattan jury agreed with Mr. Bragg, bringing in “guilty” verdicts on all 34 counts after deliberating for some nine and a half hours. The district attorney alleged that Mr. Trump camouflaged payments to Ms. Daniels as retainer fees to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen. In the days before the 2024 election the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, sentenced Mr. Trump to an “unconditional discharge,” meaning no further punishment or sanction.The Supreme Court declined — Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the liberals — Mr. Trump’s invitation to intervene and delay his sentencing until after his second term. The president, despite facing no prospect of punishment, has launched an aggressive appellate program that includes this petition in state court as well as a parallel effort to relocate the litigation to a federal court that sits at New York, the Second United States Appeals Circuit.Mr. Bragg writes that Mr. Trump “covertly paid $130,000 to the actress to buy her silence—just weeks before the 2016 presidential election, when the campaign was desperate to avoid additional bad publicity.” That context is paramount for prosecutors because the charges Mr. Bragg brought — falsification of business records — are usually misdemeanors. Empire State law, though, provides for their elevation into felonies if the falsification is committed in the service of a second crime. Judge Merchan instructed the jury in the case that they need not agree on the precise nature of that second crime — only that one occurred. Mr. Trump has challenged those instructions, claiming that the possibility that jurors could disagree and still convict Mr. Trump of felonies violated the Supreme Court’s Ramos v. Louisiana (2020), which mandates that all criminal verdicts —state as well as federal — be unanimous. Prior to Ramos states could dispense with the unanimity requirement that has been the federal standard since the 19th century.Mr. Trump also claims on appeal that the convictions are precluded by the prerogative of presidential immunity — some of the checks made out to Mr. Cohen, who was convicted in federal court for his role in this scheme — were made out at the Oval Office. Mr. Trump’s appeal points to Trump v. United States, from 2024, which held that “official conduct for which the President is immune” may not be introduced at trial “even on charges that purport to be based only on his unofficial conduct.” That case was a signature victory for Mr. Trump’s effort to overcome the criminal case against him for January 6 levied by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Mr. Bragg, though, argues that leaning on it in this litigation is inappropriate because there “is no evidentiary bar with respect to unofficial acts by the President.” Meaning that such private acts lack immunity. Only acts that are in the “exclusive and preclusive” ambit of presidential responsibility are entitled to “absolute” immunity. That is the civil standard as well — the Supreme Court held in Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982) that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity from civil liability for actions taken within the “outer perimeter” of his official responsibilities. Mr. Bragg insists that the payments were private — that was also the conclusion reached at earlier stages of the litigation by Judge Merchan and a federal judge, Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York.Mr. Bragg also rejects Mr. Trump’s contention, made on appeal, that he did not know the end to which Mr. Cohen would put the payments. The district attorney writes that there is “abundant and damning evidence that defendant was motivated to conceal the sexual encounter with Daniels (and thus the associated payoff) because he was concerned about its public disclosure at a vulnerable point in his campaign.”In June Mr. Trump declared on Truth Social that “Our Constitution, and the Rule of Law, demand immediate and swift dismissal, as well as for the Perpetrators of the Radical Left Lawfare and Weaponization to be held criminally responsible for their terrible misdeeds.” Whichever side loses at the Appellate Division, First Department will have the opportunity to appeal to the Empire State’s highest authority, the New York Court of Appeals.Mr. Trump’s hopes of moving the case to federal court — whose judges and juries are seen as less partisan than their more local counterparts — have not yet entirely evaporated. In November the Second Circuit ordered Judge Hellerstein, 92, to take another look at the issue after he had previously ruled against Mr. Trump, reasoning that payments to an adult film performer could not be part of a president’s official duties. The circuit riders reckoned that Judge Hellerstein “did not consider whether certain evidence admitted during the state court trial relates to immunized official acts or, if so, whether evidentiary immunity transformed” the hush money case into a federal one. Judge Hellerstein heard oral arguments in February, and has not yet ruled on Mr. Trump’s request to access a federal forum.

Exclusive: Manhattan DA Defends Hush Money Convictions in Stormy Daniels Case Against Trump’s Appellate Onslaught

Exclusive: Manhattan DA Defends Hush Money Convictions in Stormy Daniels Case Against Trump’s Appellate Onslaught

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