Trump Goes to Court in Stormy Daniels Case To Shed His Convicted Felon Status

The oral arguments on Thursday before New York’s intermediate appeals court over President Trump’s petition to overturn his 34 felony convictions in the state hush money case that turns on payments made to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels suggest that the president has a fighting chance of a reversal.Mr. Trump’s attorney, Robert Giuffra, a co-chairman of the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, told the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, First Judicial Department, that “this case never should have been brought.” Mr. Trump was ultimately sentenced to an unconditional discharge, an unusual punishment that imposes no further penalties or conditions.The 47th president’s legal team told the appellate judges on Thursday that the “federal and New York state Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan D.A. be overturned and dismissed.” They also argued that Mr. Trump’s convictions ought to be overturned in light of the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States, which established that sitting presidents enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.The office of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, argued that Mr. Trump’s payments amounted to “a conspiracy to defraud the American public and government regulators” and that the “criminal charges here arose from Mr. Trump’s unofficial, non-presidential conduct — as multiple courts have already found.” Those courts include Judge Juan Merchan, who rejected Mr. Trump’s argument at trial, as well as Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York. Judge Hellerstein, who died last week at the age of 92, thrice rebuffed Mr. Trump’s requests to transfer the case — the legal term is “removal” — to federal court from state court. Mr. Trump argued that the case belonged in federal court because of the federal office he was pursuing at the time of the alleged criminal acts. Judge Hellerstein, though, reckoned that “reimbursing Cohen for advancing hush money to Stormy Daniels cannot be considered the performance of a constitutional duty.”The oral arguments this week come more than two years after Mr. Trump was convicted by a unanimous Manhattan jury in May 2024 of a scheme to falsify business records related to reimbursements made to his erstwhile attorney, Michael Cohen. The payments, totaling some $130,000, went to Ms. Daniels. She alleges that they were connected to a sexual encounter between herself and Mr. Trump at Lake Tahoe in 2006.Mr. Bragg argues that the payments constituted criminal falsification of business records because they were disguised as a retainer for Mr. Cohen. The prosecutor also contends that they violated election law — in a precise manner left unspecified — by attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election, which Mr. Trump won. That connection to the vote, Mr. Bragg insisted, elevated the charges to felonies.Mr. Trump contended before the verdicts were brought in that the jury instructions issued by Judge Merchan were unconstitutional because they ran afoul of the Supreme Court’s 2020 mandate in Ramos v. Louisiana that all felony convictions, state and federal, require unanimous jury verdicts. Judge Merchan concluded that unanimity was required as to the ultimate verdict, but not necessarily as to every element of how the crime was carried out.One legal scholar, Seth Barrett Tillman, argues in an amicus brief filed alongside the Landmark Legal Foundation that Judge Merchan’s jury instructions were “flawed because they violate President Trump’s constitutional right to a unanimous verdict.” The New York Sun has reported how another legal scholar, Jed Shugerman, maintains that the convictions were unlawful because they amounted to an unconstitutional state encroachment on federal authority. Mr. Shugerman calls that a “fundamental defect.”Two of Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers in the Daniels case have gone on to high office under the 47th president. Todd Blanche is now attorney general, while Emil Bove is a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. If Mr. Trump fails to persuade the Appellate Division to overturn his convictions, his next stop will be the Empire State’s highest tribunal, the Court of Appeals.Of the four criminal cases levied against Mr. Trump — two by Special Counsel Jack Smith, one by the Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis, and one by Mr. Bragg — only this one has resulted in a conviction. When Mr. Giuffra was asked by reporters how he thought Mr. Trump’s side performed in oral arguments, he declared “We should definitely win.”

Trump Goes to Court in Stormy Daniels Case To Shed His Convicted Felon Status

Trump Goes to Court in Stormy Daniels Case To Shed His Convicted Felon Status

More from the New York Sun

Chicago Police Are Wrongly Arresting Black Legal Gun Owners, Lawsuit Claims

Rob Gronkowski Rejects Turning Point USA Connection Ahead of Patriots Hall of Fame Induction

Pro American Basketball Player Held in Indonesia on Cannabis Charges Waits for Help From Washington

Stasi Spy Play ‘The Lives of Others’ Gives Cinema New Life on Stage

LeBron James Takes Aim at AI Betting App for Using His Name and Likeness

Carney Government Announces World-Leading Pace for Immigrant Admissions to Canada in 2027

Feds Tear Into New York’s $500 Million Adult Day Care Program for Billing the Dead and Seniors Overseas

MAGA Will Not Be Ignored

More from the New York Sun

Chicago Police Are Wrongly Arresting Black Legal Gun Owners, Lawsuit Claims

Rob Gronkowski Rejects Turning Point USA Connection Ahead of Patriots Hall of Fame Induction

Pro American Basketball Player Held in Indonesia on Cannabis Charges Waits for Help From Washington

Stasi Spy Play ‘The Lives of Others’ Gives Cinema New Life on Stage

LeBron James Takes Aim at AI Betting App for Using His Name and Likeness

Carney Government Announces World-Leading Pace for Immigrant Admissions to Canada in 2027

Feds Tear Into New York’s $500 Million Adult Day Care Program for Billing the Dead and Seniors Overseas

MAGA Will Not Be Ignored