{"id":100735,"date":"2025-10-28T22:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T22:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=100735"},"modified":"2025-10-28T22:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T22:51:09","slug":"trump-appeals-against-conviction-in-hush-money-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=100735","title":{"rendered":"Trump appeals against conviction in hush-money case"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US President Donald Trump has filed an appeal to overturn his\u00a0May 2024 criminal conviction\u00a0in the hush-money payment case, arguing he is shielded by presidential immunity.<\/p>\n

Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records by a unanimous jury in New York.<\/p>\n

In December, citing Trump\u2019s imminent return to the White House, a New York judge sentenced Trump to an unconditional discharge, meaning he would not serve time or pay a fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,\u201d Trump\u2019s lawyers said in the latest filing.<\/p>\n

They described the case as \u201cthe most politically charged prosecution in our nation\u2019s history\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Manhattan District Attorney\u2019s office, which prosecuted Trump, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors alleged that in the days before the 2016 election, Trump instructed his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay $130,000 in hush money to the adult film star Stormy Daniels so she would stay silent about allegations of a sexual encounter with Trump.<\/p>\n

The hush-money payment was not illegal, but prosecutors said that when Trump reimbursed Cohen, the payments were fraudulently recorded as legal expenses in order to disguise their true nature.<\/p>\n

The spring 2024 trial played out in tandem with Trump\u2019s re-election campaign.<\/p>\n

During the trial, prosecutors alleged that disguising the payments amounted to a form of election interference as they kept Daniels\u2019 allegations from voters. Trump denied the charges and any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

A jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records that May,\u00a0making him the first former or sitting US president to be convicted of a felony.<\/p>\n

About a month after his conviction, the US Supreme Court ruled that US presidents had broad immunity from criminal prosecution for \u201cofficial acts\u201d undertaken during their presidency.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s lawyers in the Manhattan case then argued that the Supreme Court\u2019s immunity finding should apply to Trump\u2019s hush-money case, and that certain evidence from the trial should have been excluded because it stemmed from Trump\u2019s first presidency.<\/p>\n

Justice Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump\u2019s hush-money case, rejected the argument. But Trump\u2019s team was long expected to appeal.<\/p>\n

In their filings, Trump\u2019s lawyer wrote that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg \u201cbrought those charges in the middle of a contentious presidential election in which President Trump was the leading Republican candidate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese charges against President Trump were as unprecedented as their political context,\u201d the lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n

They argued that Trump\u2019s actions had not violated New York law and are seeking to have the case dismissed.<\/p>\n

The case will go before the New York Appellate Division, First Department.<\/p>\n

In August, the same court\u00a0threw out a $500 million civil fraud penalty against Trump\u00a0that resulted from a separate civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.<\/p>\n

A panel of appellate judges upheld a lower court finding that Trump was liable for fraud, but found the enormous financial penalties the judge had issued were not justified.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"TrumpUS President Donald Trump has filed an appeal to overturn his\u00a0May 2024 criminal conviction\u00a0in the hush-money payment case, arguing he is shielded by presidential immunity.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[993,11442,1910,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-hush-money-case","category-international","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}