President Trump is seeking to reverse the historic Manhattan hush money conviction that branded him a felon as he campaigned for a second White House term last year.
“This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” the 79-year-old president’s lawyers wrote to a New York appeals court in a filing late Monday.
The appeal is Trump’s latest bid to overturn his guilty verdict on 34 counts of business fraud for covering up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the runup to his 2016 presidential campaign.
The commander-in-chief’s attorneys blasted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, for using a “convoluted legal theory” to prosecute the “leading Republican candidate” just months before Election Day 2024.
“These charges against President Trump were as unprecedented as their political context,” the lawyers from white-shoe Manhattan-based firm Sullivan & Cromwell wrote.
The filing rehashes several arguments that Trump made during and after the 2024 trial, including that he should have been immune from prosecution because he was president at the time of the hush money coverup.
The president’s lawyers also argued that Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the trial, should have recused himself from the case because of his small-dollar donations to Democrat causes, and his daughter’s advertising work for prominent members of the party.
Trump has separately asked a federal appeals court to move the case from state to federal court — a legal gambit that could lead to the US Supreme Court having a chance to weigh whether to overturn the verdict.
Trump was given a no-penalty sentence in January, freeing him of the threat of jail or fines as he readied to re-enter the White House.
