A federal judge in Manhattan has rejected President Trump's third attempt to move his state hush money conviction into federal court, a ruling his legal team calls "baseless and lawless" and vows to appeal.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein issued his decision Friday, finding that Trump's renewed arguments for removing the case from New York state jurisdiction were "neither new nor legally sufficient." The ruling keeps the 2024 conviction in state court, where Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
It marks the third time Hellerstein has refused to let the federal court seize control of the case, and the first since a federal appeals court ordered him to take another look at Trump's arguments.
Trump's legal strategy centered on presidential immunity. His attorneys argued that the Supreme Court's landmark immunity decision, the federal Constitution, and New York's state constitution all required the case to be pulled out of state court and dismissed. But Hellerstein was unconvinced.
The judge pointed to Trump's own legal team's choices as part of the problem. AP News reported that Hellerstein's written ruling cited Trump's decision to first seek relief in state court rather than immediately pursuing federal remedies after the Supreme Court's immunity ruling. The judge wrote:
"Trump's delay in filing for removal constitutes a quintessential strategic decision, and the fact that he later came to view that decision as a poor one is not sufficient, by itself, to establish cause."
That line cuts to the core of the dispute. Trump's lawyers made a calculated bet on state court first. When that path stalled, they came back to Hellerstein, who had already turned them away twice.
During oral arguments in February, Hellerstein had previewed his skepticism. He criticized Trump's attorneys for seeking "two bites at the apple," signaling that a third denial was likely.
The renewed bid before Hellerstein only happened because a higher court intervened. Last year, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously vacated Hellerstein's earlier denial and sent the case back for further review. The panel ruled that Hellerstein had failed to adequately evaluate whether the Supreme Court's 2024 presidential immunity decision required closer scrutiny of evidence used at trial.
The Second Circuit found that the lower court "cannot be confident" it had properly weighed the immunity question. The panel wrote that Hellerstein "bypassed what we consider to be important issues bearing on the ultimate issue of good cause."
Trump's defense attorneys had argued that the Manhattan prosecution "rested its case on testimony probing President Trump's official acts during his first term." Fox News reported that the appeals panel specifically found Hellerstein had not considered whether evidence admitted at trial related to immunized official acts under the Supreme Court's ruling.
So Hellerstein reconsidered. And he reached the same conclusion.
A spokesperson for Trump's legal team wasted no time responding. The team called the ruling "baseless and lawless" and issued a statement framing the fight in broader terms, as the New York Post reported:
"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 statement added that "President Trump will be filing a powerful appeal, and will continue defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn."
Manhattan prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
Trump was convicted in May 2024 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The charges stemmed from a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. He was sentenced to an unconditional discharge, meaning the conviction stands on his record, but he received no jail time or other punishment.
The conviction made Trump the first former, and now current, U.S. president to be found guilty of a crime. He was convicted while between his first and second terms in office.
Trump is also challenging the conviction through New York's state court appellate process, a separate legal track that remains pending. Just The News reported that Trump's motivation for pursuing the federal removal route is the stronger possibility of outright dismissal on immunity grounds, a remedy state courts have been unwilling to grant.
The federal path now depends on whether an appeals court will, for a second time, overrule Hellerstein. Given that the Second Circuit already sent the case back once and Hellerstein reached the same result, the next round of appellate review will test whether the judge adequately addressed the immunity questions the higher court flagged.
Three denials from the same judge, one reversal from the appeals court, and a conviction with no punishment attached. Whatever one thinks of the underlying case, the legal process has produced a result that satisfies no one, and the fight is far from over.
