President Donald Trump loses again in bid to erase his hush money conviction

A federal judge has again rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to move his New York hush-money criminal case into federal court and have his conviction thrown out under presidential immunity.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that Trump’s latest arguments were neither new nor legally sufficient. Trump argued that testimony from former aides, his lawyer and some of his presidential-era social media posts improperly involved official presidential acts. Hellerstein disagreed, saying that arranging hush-money payments and covering up an embarrassing personal matter are not part of a president’s official duties and therefore are not protected by presidential immunity.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records connected to the $130,000 payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Although Trump received an unconditional discharge — meaning no jail time, fine or probation — the felony conviction remains on his record.

This is the third time Hellerstein has refused to move the case from New York state court into federal court. The federal appeals court had ordered him last year to reconsider the issue following the Supreme Court’s 2024 presidential-immunity ruling, but after reconsidering it, Hellerstein reached essentially the same conclusion.

A significant part of the ruling also dealt with Trump’s legal strategy and timing. Hellerstein said Trump's attorneys initially chose to ask the New York trial judge to overturn the verdict on immunity grounds rather than immediately seeking federal intervention. He described that as a strategic decision and said Trump could not later seek a “second bite at the apple” simply because the first strategy did not produce the desired result.

Trump’s lawyers immediately appealed Friday’s decision, calling it “baseless and lawless” and arguing that the Supreme Court’s immunity decision requires the conviction to be overturned.

So, the conviction remains in place for now, but Trump is pursuing two separate appellate tracks: one challenging Hellerstein’s federal-court decision and another challenging the conviction through New York’s state appellate courts.