President Donald Trump on Monday formally asked an appeals court to overturn his conviction in his historic New York hush money case that resulted in him making history as the first convicted felon to serve as president.
In May 2024, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels on his behalf ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
While Trump received a sentence of unconditional discharge — effectively no punishment — he remains a convicted felon.
Trump seems intent on removing that stain from his record, having his lawyers file a lengthy brief at 11:30 p.m. Monday that argued his conviction should be thrown out.
“This is the most politically charged prosecution in our Nation’s history,” wrote his lawyers, a team from Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.
“This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” they continued. “This Court should now reverse.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought that case against the president, has yet to address Monday’s court filing, which used many of the same arguments Trump has previously brought up to get himself off the hook.
His lawyers noted that the trial “was fatally marred by the introduction of official Presidential acts that the Supreme Court has made clear cannot be used as evidence against a President,” citing the high court’s landmark presidential immunity ruling.
Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the case, previously disputed Trump’s claims that immunity affected the evidence presented in the case. Still, Merchan sided with Trump’s lawyers in finding that the Supreme Court’s ruling protected Trump from any serious punishment during his sentencing hearing in January.
Trump’s lawyers also took aim at Merchan over his refusal to “recuse himself despite having made political contributions to President Trump’s electoral opponents and despite having disqualifying family conflicts,” among other arguments to get his conviction overturned.
His attorneys had argued beginning in 2023 that Merchan was not qualified to oversee the proceeding due to his daughter’s work on behalf of now-former Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats as well as his minimal political donations to Democrats in 2020. Merchan did not recuse himself after consulting with the court’s advisory board on judicial ethics, which saw no reason for his removal.
Trump separately asked for the case to be transferred to federal court in June. The request is still pending, but if the federal appeals court rules in his favor, it could allow Trump to bring the case before the U.S. Supreme Court — which has delivered several wins for him — and ask it to reverse his criminal conviction.