State appeal centers on White House evidence and presidential immunity
President Donald Trump’s lawyers are scheduled to ask a New York appeals court on Thursday to overturn his hush money conviction. Trump is not expected to attend the session. The appeal comes two years after the May 2024 verdict, which made him the first former and now current U.S. president with a criminal conviction.
Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to obscure a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult film performer. The conviction brought no punishment and did not impede his return to the White House. Trump denies wrongdoing, and he continued to denounce the conviction on social media as recently as September.
At trial, Trump’s then-fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 weeks before the 2016 election. Prosecutors argued the money bought, for a time, her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with the then-married Trump a decade earlier. Trump has said no sexual encounter occurred. Trump’s company reimbursed Cohen in 2017 and logged the payments as legal expenses.
Prosecutors argued the transactions were intended to keep unflattering information about Trump away from the electorate and that he “orchestrated a conspiracy” that violated federal campaign finance laws, among others. Trump’s lawyers say there is only “weak” evidence that he knew about Cohen’s dealings at the time. His trial attorneys described the payments to Cohen as legal expenses and said any money spent on Trump’s behalf was not hidden campaign spending, but an effort to avoid embarrassing his family.
The distinction has legal significance under New York law: falsifying business records is not a felony unless it is done with intent to commit or conceal a separate crime. Trump’s legal team also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence and the jury instructions.
The political dimension is visible in the team’s court filings. The opening paragraph of one filing describes the case as the flimsy product of “immense political pressure” on a Democratic prosecutor. Other papers call the prosecution’s legal theory “a house of cards,” built on a shaky combination of alleged state and federal offenses, with “clearly insufficient” evidence and problematic jury instructions.
A second major issue is what jurors heard about Trump’s time in office. The appeal asks whether they should have been allowed to hear about supposed White House conversations and workflow, as well as Trump’s social media posts during his first term. Trump’s lawyers invoke presidential immunity for official acts and argue his official conduct included responding to the Daniels controversy once it became public in 2018.
Robert Giuffra Jr., one of Trump’s lawyers, made the immunity argument in an October filing. He wrote: “When a president addresses the nation to defend himself from allegations of personal misconduct (as all presidents do), or discusses such communications with his aides, he is carrying out his constitutional duties and is protected by immunity.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office counters that the prosecution’s legal theory and jury instructions were legitimate and that the White House-related evidence was fair game. According to prosecutors, some of the evidence was public record and some was a general description of office practices, but the conversations themselves were “unofficial conduct.”
Alvin Bragg’s appeals chief, Steven Wu, wrote in a July filing: “A president’s discussions about a purely private matter, even with a White House advisor, do not constitute ‘official acts for which the president is immune.’” He also pointed to what he described as a “mountain” of other evidence against Trump.
While the New York court reviews the conviction, Trump is also trying to have the case moved to federal court and dismissed on immunity grounds. A federal judge rejected that effort for the third time in August. Trump’s attorneys are appealing that decision, and arguments are set for Nov. 16.