A year ago, a jury of 12 New Yorkers condemned Donald Trump for falsifying commercial records as part of an alleged money scheme to influence the 2016 elections.
The conviction left an indelible brand in Trump, making it the first president or former president who declared himself guilty of a crime, and his struggle to erase that legacy continues to the present day.
On June 11, a Federal Court of Appeals in Manhattan will hear oral arguments in the renewed legal struggle of the president to transfer his criminal case of the State to the Federal Court.
Manhattan’s district prosecutor Alvin Bragg, opposes the measure, arguing that a case cannot be transferred to a Federal Court after the conviction, but Trump’s lawyers have argued that the “unprecedented criminal prosecution of a former president of the United States belongs to a Federal Court.”
Trump was convicted of 34 charges of serious crimes after prosecutors alleged that he dedicated himself to a “scheme” to increase his possibilities during the 2016 presidential elections through a series of money payments in silence to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels and the falsification of the commercial records of New York to cover up that alleged criminal conduct.
Ten days before Trump swore as president last November, the judge of New York, Juan Merchan, sentenced him to an unconditional high, without prison, fines or probation, saying that it was the “only legal sentence” to avoid “invading the greatest position of the earth.”
“I won the elections in a mass landslide, and the people of this country understand what is happening. This has been a government weapon,” Trump told the court during his sentence.
The Judge of the State of New York, Juan Merchan sentences, the president -elect Donald Trump, since he appears remotely together with his lawyer Todd Blanche for a sentence hearing as a prosecutor Joshua Steinglass listens to the New York Criminal Court in New York City, on January 10, 2025.
Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
Trump continues to vehement any irregularity, and his lawyers have argued that his conviction was based on evidence and testimony that was related to his official acts as president, including publications on the social networks of his official Twitter account as president and testimony of his former Communications Director Hope Hicks.
The trial took place a month before the Supreme Court issued a historical ruling that expanded the scope of presidential immunity, and Trump’s lawyers have argued that the evidence would not have been allowed based on the decision of the Superior Court.
Trump’s lawyers tried to use that argument to throw the case before Trump’s January judgment, but the argument was rejected by Judge Juan Merchan, two Courts of Appeals of New York and the Supreme Court.
“The alleged probative violations in the trial of the state court of the elected president Trump can be addressed in the ordinary course of appeal,” said the Supreme Court in a brief opinion without signing, although four judges said they would have granted Trump’s request.
For Trump’s criminal defense, he was based on the defense lawyers in the then defense Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who now serve as Deputy Attorney General and the main attached attorney general. Earlier this week, Trump announced that he plans to nominate Bove, who led a purge of officials responsible for enforcing the law before the Senate confirmed his nomination to help direct the Department of Justice, to the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
With his former defense lawyers now working for the Government, Trump earlier this year took advantage of Manhattan’s elite law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell to handle your criminal appeal.
The lawyers of the Department of Justice also submitted an Amicus report in the case this week to argue that the case should be heard, and expelled by a federal court because the sentence of the jury was based on evidence covered by the presidential immunity.
“In fact, the defense of President Trump takes the form of a new constitutional immunity announced by the Supreme Court after his trial ended, instead of a new statute promulgated by Congress, they should if something cut in favor of the president”, the lawyers of the Department of Justice argued in a brief presented on Tuesday.
The appeal, as well as the current appeal of the sentence of $ 83 million of Trump in the civil case of E. Jean Carroll and the case of civil fraud of half a billion dollars, is proceeding for unknown legal reasons while Trump exercises the power of the presidency in his defense. He has characterized prosecutors who pursued cases against him as politically motivated, and has promoted his electoral victory last November as a political acquittal.
“The true verdict will be on November 5 for the people,” Trump told reporters when he left the Court after his conviction last year. “And they know what happened here, and everyone knows what happened here.”
