2 weeks Ago By Michael R Sisak
Former US president Donald Trump has asked a court to intervene in his New York hush money criminal case, seeking a pathway to overturn his felony conviction and indefinitely delay his sentencing next month. / (min cost $ 0 ) or signup to continue reading Lawyers for the current Republican nominee on Thursday asked the federal court in Manhattan to seize the case from the state court where it was tried, arguing that the historic prosecution violated his constitutional rights and ran afoul of the US Supreme Court's recent presidential immunity ruling. Trump's lawyers, who failed last year in a pre-trial bid to get the case shifted to federal court, said moving it now will give him an "unbiased forum, free from local hostilities" to address those issues.
In state court, they said, Trump has been the victim of "bias, conflicts of interest, and appearances of impropriety". If the case is moved to federal court, Trump's lawyers said they will then seek to have the verdict overturned and the case dismissed on immunity grounds. If the case remains in state court and Trump's sentencing proceeds as scheduled on September 18 - about seven weeks before Election Day - it would be election interference, his lawyers said, raising the spectre that Trump could be sent to jail just as early voting is getting under way.
The Manhattan district attorney's office, which prosecuted Trump's case and fought his previous effort to move the case out of state court, declined to comment. A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for New York's state court system. Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to conceal a $US130,000 ($A191,000) hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to disrupt his 2016 presidential run.
Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels and was later reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses. Trump maintains that the stories were false, that reimbursements were for legal work and logged correctly, and that the case against him was part of a politically motivated "witch hunt" aimed at damaging his current presidential campaign. Advertisement Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date.
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