By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) –
A U.S. appeals court on Thursday declined to interfere with a lower court decision to keep Donald Trump’s already-decided criminal case over hush money paid to a porn star in state court, dealing another blow to the former U.S. president’s bid to move the case to federal court.
On Aug. 29, nearly three months after he was convicted in the first-ever criminal trial of a U.S. president, Trump asked U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to move the case from New York state court in Manhattan to federal court, arguing the trial violated his constitutional rights.
Trump, the Republican nominee for president in the Nov. 5 election, said that if the case were moved, he would ask the federal court to dismiss it altogether because jurors at trial saw evidence of his official acts as president.
He said that violated the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision finding presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts.
Hellerstein denied that request on Sept. 3, finding that the case dealt with “private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.” Trump asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to put that decision on hold while it considered the merits of his appeal.
A three-judge panel at the 2nd Circuit denied Trump’s request, citing Justice Juan Merchan’s delay of Trump’s sentencing date to Nov. 26 from Sept. 18. Merchan wrote that he wanted to avoid the unwarranted perception of a political motive.
Merchan is now set to decide on Nov. 12 whether the case should be dismissed because of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, which stemmed from a separate criminal case Trump faces over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case.
In the New York state case, a jury on May 30 found Trump guilty of 34 counts of felony falsification of business records to hide his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump.
Trump denies having sex with Daniels, and has vowed to appeal his conviction once he is sentenced.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell and Noeleen Walder)
