Trump appeals ruling that porn star payoff trial be held in New York state court

Donald Trump on Friday appealed a judge’s recent denial of his request that his pending New York state criminal case be transferred to federal court.

Trump, 77, was indicted in late March by a grand jury in Manhattan Supreme Court on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to payments made to Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer.

The payments reimbursed Cohen, and then some, for the lawyer’s $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels right before the 2016 presidential election, intended to keep her quiet about an alleged one-time sexual tryst with Trump. Trump had recorded the payments to Cohen as being for legal services.

Trump asked federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein to transfer his case from state court to U.S. District Court in Manhattan, arguing that because the records were created when he was president, the case properly belonged in federal court.

In a blunt decision July 19 denying the request, Hellerstein wrote, “Trump has failed to show that the conduct charged by the Indictment is for or related to any act performed by or for the President under color of the official acts of a President.”

“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was purely a personal item of the President, a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” the judge wrote.

Trump, who is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is now asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to overturn Hellerstein’s ruling.

The case is being prosecuted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. A state court judge has scheduled a trial in the case to begin late March 2024.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case. He also denies having had sex with Daniels.

Separately, Trump was criminally charged last month in Florida federal court with nearly three dozen counts related to retaining classified records at his residence at the Mar-a-Lago Club after he left office.

Prosecutors on Thursday added several charges to that case, alleging Trump and two co-defendants tried to destroy surveillance video at the club that captured the movement of boxes containing the records.

Trump also is currently under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors for his efforts to reverse his loss in the 2020 presidential election. A state prosecutor in Georgia separately is investigating him for similar conduct in that state.