Federal appeals court wrestles with Trump effort to fight hush money conviction

A federal appeals court in New York wrangled Wednesday with President Donald Trump’s claim that his hush money conviction should be reviewed by federal courts and seemed open to the idea that the Supreme Court’s landmark immunity decision may weigh in the president’s favor.

A federal appeals court in New York wrangled Wednesday with President Donald Trump’s claim that his hush money conviction should be reviewed by federal courts and seemed open to the idea that the Supreme Court’s landmark immunity decision may weigh in the president’s favor. “It seems to me that we got a very big case that created a whole new world of presidential immunity,” US Circuit Judge Myrna Pérez, who was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, said at one point during oral arguments. “The boundaries are not clear at this point.” At issue is whether Trump can move his state court case on 34 counts of falsifying business records to federal court, where he hopes to argue that prosecutors violated the Supreme Court’s immunity decision last year by using certain evidence against him, including testimony from former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks. “The scope of a federal constitutional immunity for the president of the United States should be decided by this court and the Supreme Court, not by New York state courts,” said Jeffrey Wall, a former acting US solicitor general who is representing Trump in the case. “Everything about this cries out for federal court.” The Supreme Court’s decision last year granted Trump immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts and barred prosecutors from attempting to enter evidence about them, even if they are pursuing alleged crimes involving that president’s private conduct. Without that prohibition on evidence, the Supreme Court reasoned, a prosecutor could “eviscerate the immunity” the court recognized by allowing a jury to second-guess a president’s official acts.