MANHATTAN (CN) — The Manhattan district attorney is within his jurisdiction to prosecute Donald Trump in state court over hush money paid to a porn star, a federal judge signaled on Tuesday afternoon, without formally ruling on a motion to remand the former president's case back to state court.
"There’s no reason to believe that an equal measure of justice cannot be rendered by the state court as in federal court," Senior U.S. District Judge Alvin said at the end of three-hour hearing Tuesday, promising a written opinion on where the criminal case will proceed within two weeks.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office brought a 34-count grand jury indictment against Trump in March, making him the first U.S. president to be criminally charged.
Trump faces charges that he falsified records at his namesake company to cover up payments made in 2017 that compensated his then attorney, Michael Cohen, for facilitating payments during the run-up to the 2016 election to keep porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal quiet about allegations of extramarital sexual encounters.
Trump has long denied affairs with either woman and more recently pleaded not guilty to the hush-money charges.
Attorneys for the former president subsequently sought to have the case transferred from the jurisdiction of Manhattan Supreme Court to federal court in the Southern District of New York, contending that the indictment charges Trump with acts done within his official capacity as president, what they refer to as the “color of his office,” because he was president when he is accused of falsifying business records about the payments to Daniels and McDougal.
Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles represented Trump at the hearing Tuesday.
At the conclusion of the hearing, U.S. District Judge Hellerstein signaled that he was not convinced by Trump’s case for transferring the case to federal court.
"I think the argument is very clear that the act for which the president has been indicted does not relate to anything under color of his office,” the Clinton-appointed judge said.
Blanche several times asserted that Trump retained Cohen to act as a personal attorney to handle potential ethical and constitutional conflicts of interest that arose when Trump divested from his real estate empire upon becoming the 45th U.S. president.
“There is not always a clear line between his personal and official affairs,” he said.
Judge Hellerstein appeared critical of the evidence Trump’s lawyers proffered that their client was that he was acting in his official capacity as president rather than tending to private affairs.
“Cohen was hired as a private matter,” the judge said of the now-disbarred lawyer. “Hired as a private matter by a public official."
Hellerstein said the contention that the private act of hiring Cohen and paying him out of his pocket was related to his official duties as president “sounds a little far-fetched, but that’s the argument.”
Attorneys for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office argued that Trump had failed to establish that the charges against him are “for or relating to any act under color of office,” and therefore the case should remain in state court.
“Most fundamentally, defendant’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,” state prosecutors wrote in their motion to have the case remanded back to state court. “Defendant also has invoked no colorable federal defense because there is no plausible basis to invoke official immunity for his unofficial actions, and because no federal law preempts New York’s regulation of the record-keeping of private enterprises.”
Trump’s trial in Manhattan Supreme Court is set to commence on March 25, 2024, while presidential primaries are underway, about three weeks after Super Tuesday on March 5.
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