A Clinton-appointed federal judge in Manhattan denied President Trump's latest attempt to transfer his New York criminal case to federal court, the third such rejection, and Trump's legal team immediately filed an appeal.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled Friday that Trump waited too long and that his arguments for removal fell short, finding that the president's claims of immunity do not cover the conduct at issue in the case. Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records tied to a $130,000 hush money payment made in 2016 to adult film star Stormy Daniels in connection with an alleged affair.
The ruling marks the third time Hellerstein has blocked Trump's effort to shift the case out of the Manhattan District Attorney's jurisdiction and into federal court, where the president's team believes immunity protections would force a dismissal. Trump's lawyers filed an appeal with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals within hours of the decision.
At the center of the dispute is a federal statute that allows officials to move state prosecutions to federal court when the charges stem from acts performed "under color" of their office. Trump's legal team argued that the Supreme Court's sweeping ruling on presidential immunity, which held that former presidents enjoy broad criminal immunity for official acts, required the case to be transferred.
Hellerstein disagreed. In his order, the judge wrote:
"The grounds for a second removal cited by Defendant, Donald J. Trump, are neither new nor legally sufficient. He has failed to show good cause and diligence."
He went further on the immunity question, rejecting the idea that paying off a porn star or covering up a personal embarrassment qualifies as an official presidential act:
"They do not; paying hush money to an adult film star or engaging in a cover-up of an embarrassment are not subsumed in presidential immunity."
That language cuts to the core of the legal fight. Trump's team contends the Supreme Court's immunity decision changed the legal landscape enough to justify a fresh removal attempt. Hellerstein found it did not, and that Trump should have raised these arguments sooner.
Friday's ruling came after the 2nd Circuit had already intervened once on Trump's behalf. In November, the appeals court found that Hellerstein had "bypassed important issues" and "brushed aside the president's arguments too easily," ordering him to take a second look at the removal request. That remand gave Trump's lawyers a second shot, and now, after Hellerstein's renewed denial, they are heading back to the same appellate panel.
A spokesperson for Trump's legal team issued a blistering response, calling the ruling "baseless and lawless" and framing the prosecution as politically motivated:
"The Supreme Court's historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be removed to federal court, and immediately overturned and dismissed."
The spokesperson added that "President Trump has already prevailed in this case at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals", a reference to the November remand, and promised "a powerful appeal."
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office declined to comment on the ruling. Bragg, a Democrat, secured the conviction that made Trump the first sitting or former president to face a criminal trial. The New York case remains the only one of four criminal prosecutions Trump faced during his campaign that actually went to trial; the other three were dismissed.
The prosecution's case leaned heavily on the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney who made the $130,000 payment to Daniels and later became the star witness against him. Cohen has since said he was coerced to testify and has reconciled with Trump, a reversal that raises questions about the foundation of the conviction itself, even if those questions were not before Hellerstein on Friday.
Trump is also appealing the conviction through New York's state courts, a separate track from the federal removal effort. The two paths run in parallel: the state appeal challenges the verdict on its merits, while the federal removal bid aims to shift the entire proceeding into a forum where presidential immunity arguments carry more weight.
The broader legal landscape surrounding Trump and the federal courts continues to evolve. The Supreme Court has sided with the president on other fronts, and the administration has notched wins in several appellate battles. But the New York hush money case has proved stubbornly resistant to the immunity framework Trump's lawyers have deployed elsewhere.
Hellerstein, appointed by President Clinton, has now rejected Trump's removal arguments at every stage: before trial, after conviction, and again after the appellate remand. Each time, the judge has found that the conduct at issue, payments to Daniels and the bookkeeping entries that followed, does not qualify as official presidential business.
Trump's legal team sees the 2nd Circuit as friendlier ground. The appeals court's November decision suggested the panel was not satisfied with how quickly Hellerstein had dismissed the immunity arguments the first time around. Whether the appellate judges will be equally skeptical of Hellerstein's reasoning on this third go-round remains an open question.
The case also sits against a backdrop of multiple appellate battles involving the Trump administration, some of which appear headed for the Supreme Court. If the 2nd Circuit takes up Trump's appeal and rules in his favor, the hush money case could eventually reach the high court as well, adding yet another Trump-related dispute to a docket already crowded with them.
For now, the conviction stands. Trump remains a convicted defendant in New York while simultaneously serving as president, a situation without precedent in American history. His legal team has made clear it will exhaust every available avenue, and the 2nd Circuit appeal ensures the fight is far from over.
Meanwhile, other federal court rulings have gone the president's way on separate matters, underscoring the uneven terrain Trump faces across the judiciary. The question in this case has always been narrow: does paying hush money to keep a personal scandal quiet count as an official act of the presidency?
Hellerstein has answered that question three times. Three times, his answer has been no. And three times, Trump's lawyers have refused to accept it.
The administration has won significant appellate victories in other areas of law, which makes the persistence of this particular case all the more conspicuous. A prosecution built on the testimony of a witness who now says he was coerced, brought by a partisan district attorney in the most Democratic borough in America, and sustained by a Clinton appointee who refuses to let the case leave his courtroom, that combination is hard to look at and see anything other than a system straining to keep one result in place.
If the courts want the public to trust that this conviction rests on law and not politics, they will need to do more than repeat the same ruling and hope nobody notices the cracks underneath it.