Ahead of Donald Trump’s sentencing in his so-called hush-money case, set for Sept. 18 in New York state court, the former president’s lawyers are trying again to move the criminal case to federal court. They lost an earlier attempt to do so last year, but that was before the Supreme Court’s July 1 immunity ruling, which they are now citing as a reason to move the case to a federal forum.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office “violated the presidential immunity doctrine in grand jury proceedings, and again at trial, by relying on evidence of President Trump’s official acts during his first term in office,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in their federal court filing Thursday. While they raised the immunity issue more vaguely in their failed removal attempt last year, they wrote in this latest filing that they “could not have anticipated the subsequent federal developments that culminated in Trump v. United States,” referring to the immunity decision by the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority.
That Supreme Court decision came in the federal election interference case, in which Chief Justice John Roberts laid out a vague test for determining which official presidential acts are immune from prosecution, as opposed to private acts, which are not. Trump’s charges in New York state — 34 felony counts of falsifying corporate records, related to an alleged cover-up of a hush-money scheme ahead of the 2016 election — did not involve official presidential acts. But the issue that raised the immunity ruling for the case stems from a different part of the Supreme Court ruling, one that limited the use of evidence of official acts to prove guilt for unofficial acts.
Trump has a motion pending in state court to overturn his May guilty pleas based on the immunity ruling. Judge Juan Merchan set a Sept. 16 deadline for ruling on that issue and will sentence Trump two days later, assuming the judge rejects Trump’s immunity claim. But that sentencing date was recently thrown into doubt when Trump’s attorneys asked Merchan to delay sentencing, saying they plan to immediately appeal if he rejects their immunity claim. Bragg’s office did not fully object to the further delay, saying instead that it would be up to the judge. Merchan has not yet decided whether to delay sentencing; Trump’s federal court filing from Thursday said the judge told the parties he would rule on the defense’s request for a delay “on or before” Sept. 5.
Now, the Sept. 18 sentencing date is in further doubt, pending word from the federal district court on whether the case will continue there or be sent back to Merchan. The central issue in the case, however, is whether the guilty verdicts can stand under the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling or whether prosecutors will have to retry the case. That question may ultimately have to be answered by the high court.
The issue of a federal court’s waiver of jurisdiction also plays a role in the Georgia election interference case. One of Trump’s co-defendants, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, has filed a petition with the Supreme Court on the issue. Meadows also cites the immunity ruling.
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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
