A federal judge has denied Donald Trump’s request to move his New York bribery criminal case to federal court, finding that there is nothing in the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling that alters his view of the facts that the payments were “private and unofficial acts.”
Donald Trump filed a petition Thursday (29) seeking to move his criminal case from New York state to federal court in Manhattan and delay the upcoming sentencing for his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The petition asked the federal court to confirm that the former president cannot be sentenced while litigation over removal to federal court is pending.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein said no facts had changed since he previously dismissed Trump’s attempt to move the case last year. At the time, the judge concluded that Trump’s reimbursements to Michael Cohen, who facilitated hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, were not official acts he took as president.
“Nothing in the Supreme Court’s opinion affects my earlier conclusion that the hush money payments were private, unofficial acts outside the bounds of executive authority,” Hellerstein wrote in his ruling Tuesday (3).
Trump also argued that the case should be moved to federal court because he claimed that Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, was biased against him. Hellerstein said it was not his place to weigh in on the New York trial.
The former US president separately asked Merchan to delay sentencing until after the election.
Prosecutors did not oppose that request, and the judge could issue a ruling as early as this week. Trump also argued in a motion to Merchan that his conviction should be overturned in light of the Supreme Court ruling that the Republican had limited presidential immunity.
The judge said he would rule on that motion on September 16.
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This content was originally published in Judge denies Trump’s request to move criminal case to federal court on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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