In a high‑profile hearing in New York, President Trump’s attorneys pressed appellate judges to overturn his 2024 conviction for falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to adult‑film performer Stormy Daniels. The judges probed issues of presidential immunity, the relevance of White House communications, and whether the case was driven by political motives.
Trump’s legal arguments
Lead counsel Robert Giuffra Jr. told the panel that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, led by Alvin Bragg, has no authority to tie the hush‑money case to a federal election law. “We think it’s the most obvious ground for reversal,” Giuffra said, emphasizing that the alleged payment was a private legal expense, not a campaign contribution.
Giuffra also asserted that President Trump’s discussions with former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks were part of his official duties, invoking presidential immunity for actions taken while in office. He argued that the president’s response to the Daniels story in 2018 was a legitimate exercise of his executive responsibilities.
Prosecutors’ response
Prosecutors, represented by appeals chief Steven Wu, countered that the hush‑money payment was intended to suppress damaging information before the 2016 election, making it an illegal campaign contribution under the Federal Election Campaign Act. They maintained that the White House‑related testimony was admissible because it reflected “unofficial conduct” and was not protected by immunity.
Wu clarified, “It’s important only to show that the purpose for the falsifying business records here was to conceal that conspiracy.” He also described the evidence as a “mountain” of proof, arguing that any error in admitting White House communications was harmless and did not merit overturning the conviction.
Judges probe the evidence
The panel, including Justice Troy Webber and Justice Bahaati E. Pitt‑Burke, asked detailed questions about the relevance of Hicks’s testimony and the line between official and private conduct. Justice Pitt‑Burke asked, “If you take all of those things cumulatively, right, and there’s a problem with this evidence, there’s a problem with this evidence, at what point … does it stop being harmless error and turn into something else?” Wu responded that it would have to be “a lot more than there was in this case.”
Political context
The Trump team framed the appeal as a fight against “immense political pressure” on a Democratic prosecutor, echoing the president’s long‑standing claim that the case is a partisan attack. While the conviction made Trump the first sitting president with a criminal conviction, the administration argues the ruling does not impede his ability to govern.
President Trump has not attended the hearing but continues to denounce the case on social media, asserting his innocence and the illegitimacy of the prosecution.
Next steps
The appeal will be decided later this year, with the court yet to signal when it will issue a ruling. Meanwhile, Trump’s legal team is also pursuing a separate effort to move the case to federal court on immunity grounds, a bid that a federal judge denied in August for the third time. Appeals on that decision are set for a hearing on Nov. 16.
Original reporting: Dallas TX News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
