Former President Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, speaks during a town hall meeting on August 29, 2024. | Photo credit: AP
Former US President Donald Trump late on Thursday (August 29, 2024) requested a federal court to intervene in his hush money criminal case, seeking a way to overturn his conviction and indefinitely postpone his sentencing scheduled for next month.
The former president’s lawyers asked the U.S. District Court in Manhattan to take control of New York City’s criminal case, arguing that the state-level prosecution violated Trump’s constitutional rights and violated a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
Mr. Trump was convicted in May in a Manhattan state court of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to payments to suppress affair allegations that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.
A federal judge last year rejected an attempt by Mr. Trump to take the case to federal court, clearing the way for Mr. Trump’s landmark trial in state court.
In their application filed on Thursday (August 29, 2024), Mr Trump’s lawyers said taking the case to federal court after his conviction on May 30 would give them an “impartial forum, free from local hostility” to address those issues. Trump’s lawyers wrote that if the case is moved to federal court, they will seek to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case.
“The ongoing proceedings will continue to cause direct and irreparable harm to President Trump — the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election — and to voters located far beyond Manhattan,” Trump lawyers Todd Blanch and Emil Bove wrote.
A message seeking comment was left with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case.