Trump Lawyers Tear Into Judge a Day After His Death
The president’s attorneys accused the late justice of repeatedly getting it wrong as they fight to erase Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
President Donald Trump’s attorneys launched a scathing attack against a federal judge just a day after the 92-year-old justice had died.
Alvin Hellerstein’s death on Wednesday did not prevent Trump’s team from leveling another attack at him for blocking efforts to transfer the president’s hush-money proceedings into federal jurisdiction. Hellerstein died of natural causes surrounded by his family at the age of 92.
The attorneys accused Hellerstein and Manhattan prosecutors of having “grasped for different, meritless reasons to wrongly deny President Trump—the chief federal officer—a federal forum.”
Trump's conviction concerns payments over his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels.
Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
“But the district court got it wrong again, this time after taking ten months to issue its decision,” they added.
Hellerstein refused a transfer request from the president’s team in September 2024, and then again this August after appellate judges ordered another review.
Trump’s lawyers argue he benefits from a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity even though it was issued in July 2024, after his trial.
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His attorneys say that prosecutors used protected evidence concerning his presidential duties, and that they therefore have grounds to challenge his state-level convictions at the federal level.
But Hellerstein rejected those arguments. He found that neither the underlying conduct nor the disputed evidence warranted protection because concealing an alleged extramarital affair isn’t technically a president’s official responsibility.
Jurors in Manhattan convicted Trump of 34 felonies in May 2024.
The records disguised payments to Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, who provided pornstar Stormy Daniels with $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election to keep her account of a sexual encounter with the president quiet.
Trump denies wrongdoing and the encounter. The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
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