Former President Donald Trump requested a federal court to take over his hush money criminal case in New York late on Thursday, a move that could delay his sentencing, which is set to take place next month.
Former President Donald Trump's legal team argued the Manhattan case would cause him irreparable ... [+]
In a filing with the Southern District of New York federal court, Trump’s lawyers said the prosecution’s procedures “have been applied in a way that conflicts with” the Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity.
The former president’s attorneys also argued that the Manhattan criminal case “will continue to cause direct and irreparable harm to President Trump—the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential election—and voters located far beyond Manhattan.”
The filing also argued that moving the case to federal court was necessary to ensure that Trump has an “unbiased forum, free from local hostilities.”
Trump’s lawyers also accused New York Judge Juan Merchan—who oversaw the case—of being biased, citing his daughter’s work as a Democratic political consultant and claiming his gag order against the former president was “unwarranted and unconstitutional.”
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The latest filing comes as Merchan is yet to rule on an earlier request by Trump’s legal team to delay Trump’s sentencing till after the presidential election. In the event neither of his legal challenges succeed, Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in the case on September 18—just seven weeks before Election Day.
In May, a New York jury convicted Trump on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records. The indictment was based on hush money payments made by the former president’s ex-attorney Michael Cohen to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 elections to cover up an alleged affair that Trump has denied. Trump reimbursed Cohen through a series of payments in 2017—which the prosecutors argued were falsely labeled as payments for legal services.