Donald Trump’s legal team on Thursday plan to continue efforts to get his 2024 conviction in the hush money election corruption case thrown out.
Attorneys for the US president will try to persuade a New York appeals court to toss the criminal trial verdict from May 2024, when Trump was found guilty on all charges of falsifying business records in the hush-money corruption scheme to influence his eventual victory in the 2016 presidential election.
The felony conviction came after the jury agreed he altered records in order to obscure a $130,000 payment to buy the silence of adult film performer and producer Stormy Daniels. Trump mentioned the case again on social media as recently as September.
He was already the president-elect for his second term in office in early January 2025 when the judge in the case gave Trump an unconditional discharge, meaning he would remain a convicted felon but was given no jail time, fine or other penalty.
The president has always denied any wrongdoing and has turned to state and federal courts in hopes of unwinding the verdict. He was not expected to attend Thursday’s court session.
The trial involved the fee that Daniels received from Trump’s then fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, weeks before the 2016 election. The money bought, for a time, her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier when he was already married to Melania Trump and she had given birth to his youngest son, Barron. Trump maintains that nothing sexual happened with Daniels.
However, then Trump’s company reimbursed Cohen in 2017, logging those payments as legal expenses.
Saying the transactions all were meant to keep unflattering information about Trump away from the electorate, prosecutors argue that he “orchestrated a conspiracy” that violated federal campaign finance laws, among others.
Trump’s lawyers argue there is only “weak” evidence that he even knew about Cohen’s dealings at the time. His trial attorneys also said that payments to Cohen were legal expenses and were merely to avoid embarrassing Trump’s family.
The appeal turns on complex legal disputes, with heavy political overtones.
While pursuing his state appeal, Trump also has been trying to shift the case to federal court and have it dismissed on immunity grounds, based on the sensational 2024 supreme court ruling granting sweeping presidential immunity.
A federal judge declined to move that case for the third time in August. Trump’s attorneys are appealing that decision, with arguments scheduled for 16 November.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
