One year after his criminal conviction in the Manhattan hush money case, Donald Trump is still fighting to shed his felon status.
The president’s personal lawyers appeared before a federal appeals court Wednesday, urging a three-judge panel to transfer his state criminal case to federal court. Such a move would pave the way for him to eventually ask the Supreme Court to erase his criminal record by throwing out his conviction on presidential immunity grounds.
The arguments continue Trump’s long-running attempt to take the case out of state court, including two previous efforts both denied by a federal judge.
Trump suffered few consequences for his conviction last May of 34 counts of business fraud for his effort to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels: He won reelection in November and was subsequently sentenced to no punishment in January. But he returned to the White House a convicted felon despite evading the three other criminal cases brought against him.
Trump’s lawyer, Jeff Wall, argued the case should be considered in federal court because the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, issued more than a month after a New York jury convicted Trump in the hush money case, gave Trump the ability to invoke a law that allows federal officials to move a prosecution out of state court if it involves official conduct….