The challenge of President Donald Trump to his conviction for money from a serious “unique” crime in New York should be eliminated from state appeal courts and listen to a federal court, argued a lawyer from the President on Wednesday.
Little more than a year after Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a serious crime, the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit heard arguments on Wednesday about Trump’s efforts to transfer his appeal of the Verdict of the State Court to the Federal Court.
“The federal official has the right to a Federal Forum, not to listen to those arguments in the state court,” said lawyer Jeffrey Wall to the three judges panel. “And if that is true for a normal federal official in a normal criminal prosecution, it should certainly be true for the president of the United States and for what we can all recognize is an anomalous prosecution of his kind.”
Trump was sentenced last year for 34 charges for serious crimes after Manhattan prosecutors dedicated himself to a “scheme” to boost his possibilities during the 2016 presidential elections through a series of money payments in silence to the adult film actress, Stormy Daniels, and then falsified the commercial records of New York to cover that criminal conduct.
The New York judge, Juan Merchan, on the eve of the inauguration of Trump, sentenced him to an unconditional discharge, the lightest punishment possible allowed by the Law of the State of New York, saying that it was the “only legal sentence” to avoid “invading the highest position of the earth.”
At Wednesday’s hearing, a lawyer from the Manhattan district prosecutor, Steven Wu, argued that it is now too late to move the case.
“After the sentence, the elimination is no longer available,” Wu said during oral arguments.
Wu also argued that the purpose of elimination is to decide where to celebrate the trial.
President Donald Trump speaks during a round table of Astrica Invest in the state dining room, in the White House, in Washington, on June 9, 2025.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
“It is not to divert a state criminal procedure to a federal court for a direct appeal review,” Wu said.
Wall, who served as an interim general attorney in the first Trump administration, argued that the time limit to request the extraction of the Federal Court does not apply if Trump can show a good cause.
“Why shouldn’t we be looking for some more specific signs that Congress really intended this?” Judge Susan Carney asked.
“It is the first prosecution of a president’s district prosecutor,” Wall replied. “As long as you have colorible federal defenses, and it has something to do with your work, you can enter the Federal Court despite the interest of the State.”
Trump’s lawyers have argued that the conduct in question during his criminal trial included “official acts” undertaken while he was president, and that the historical ruling of the Supreme Court last year granted President immunity for official acts, which was decided after Trump was convicted in May, he would have prevented prosecutors from ensuring their conviction.
“There was evidence that came in the trial that triggered federal immunity,” Wall told the appeal panel.
Wu replied that the evidence offered an discussion involved on a crime related to Trump’s actions before becoming president.
“It’s a very unusual case, would you agree with that?” Judge Raymond Lohier asked.
“This defendant is a very unusual defendant,” Wu admitted, but argued that he should not automatically usurp the State’s interest in enforcing his laws.
The judges did not rule immediately, but said they would take the arguments under advice.
If the Court of Appeals grants Trump’s request, his conviction would still remain. The only change is that its appeal will be developed in a federal court, instead of a state. In any scenario, Trump could finally ask the United States Supreme Court to intervene.
Although Trump has affirmed in the past that, as president, he would have the right to forgive himself for federal crimes, said Professor of the Law Faculty of the University of PACE, Bennett Gershman, to ABC News that would not apply in this case.
“It is still a state crime, now you are just talking about where the litigate case is,” Gershman said. “I am not even sure that forgiveness is allowed, but that is an open question that has never been addressed.”
