Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday moved to oppose an attempt by former President Donald Trump’s attorneys to move his hush-money case to federal court, reports said.
The Hill noted that earlier this month, Trump’s lawyers argued that the case cannot be tried in a state court because the alleged violations took place while he was president, making them a federal matter.
“Such a move would increase the potential jury pool, which is currently limited to the heavily Democratic population of Manhattan,” The Hill noted.
In court documents filed Tuesday, prosecutors in Manhattan argued that the case should remain with the state court because the former president’s “alleged criminal conduct had no connection to his official duties and responsibilities as President, but instead arose from his unofficial actions relating to his private businesses and pre-election conduct.”
The Hill adds:
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with his reimbursement to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 hush payment made just ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen made the payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about an affair she claims to have had with Trump. Trump denies the affair and pleaded not guilty.
According to federal statutes, federal officers can have charges against them moved from state to federal courts when their alleged actions relate to an official act and amount to a “colorable federal defense.”
“Defendant’s alleged criminal conduct here is similarly divorced from any official duty or responsibility: the pre-election scheme and $130,000 payment to an adult film actress predated defendant’s inauguration, and his post-inauguration actions all derived from this pre-inauguration conduct, rather than any presidential duty, because defendant sought to conceal facts and to reimburse payments that preceded his time in office,” Manhattan prosecutors wrote.
“Under these circumstances, the defendant has failed to establish that the criminal conduct alleged here related to any acts performed under color of the Office of the President,” prosecutors added.
Trump’s attorneys have argued that Bragg’s prosecution of their client is politically motivated, noting further that federal courts have so-called “protective jurisdiction” to prevent federal officers from being unfairly targeted by state officials.
“This claim fails because ‘protective jurisdiction’ does not exist as a recognized basis for federal court jurisdiction, and because the defendant could not satisfy the predicates for invoking that theoretical basis for federal court jurisdiction even if it did exist,” Manhattan prosecutors argued, however.
The former president’s response is due by June 15. The Hill noted that “U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a Clinton appointee, has scheduled a June 27 hearing to decide whether the case will proceed in federal court, but the judge could rule beforehand.”
In the meantime, the state prosecution continues. Bragg’s office is expected to hand over evidence it has gathered in the case to Trump’s attorneys in the coming days.
Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz has expressed skepticism of the legal grounds supporting Bragg’s case, saying he is using “made-up laws” to muster what he sees as a politically motivated case.
“Nobody should ever be arrested based on made-up laws or combining a federal and state statute,” Dershowitz told The Epoch Times in an interview in March when news broke that Trump could be criminally charged. “I taught criminal law for 50 years at Harvard, and the one rule was, no creativity is permitted by prosecutors. The law has to be clear.”
“It’s not a righteous prosecution. It’s not just prosecution. And I think every libertarian, whether you’re conservative, or liberal, should be opposed to it,” he said.
John Bolton — who served as a national security adviser in the Trump administration and has since come out against Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign — also appeared on CNN earlier this month and blasted the charges as well, saying the indictment was “even weaker than I feared it would be.”
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
