A federal judge on Friday rejected Donald Trump's renewed bid to move his hush money case to federal court and throw out the conviction he is still fighting. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said the request was neither new nor legally sufficient, blocking the effort for a third time.
The ruling matters now because Trump is still convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and the sentence did not erase that result. He was sentenced to an unconditional discharge, which left the conviction intact and kept his challenge alive in both federal and state courts.
Hellerstein said Trump had failed to show good cause and diligence, closing off the latest path his lawyers had tried to use to move the case out of Manhattan. The charges were tied to a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, and the judge's latest order keeps the case where it has been since the start.
The renewed request was not built on a single theory. Trump's lawyers pointed to the Supreme Court's July 2024 ruling and tried to use it to argue that the case should be moved and dismissed on presidential immunity grounds. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had already told Hellerstein last November to look again, saying he had not considered important issues tied to the transfer request.
That left Hellerstein to rule on a narrower question than Trump wanted. He said the new filing did not fix the defects in the earlier bids, which he had already turned down after Trump's March 2023 indictment and again after the trial. In other words, the appellate court asked for a fresh look, but the judge still found no legal basis to change course.
Trump's legal team said it would appeal the ruling, keeping the fight alive while his state court appellate process also continues. The next step is now in the hands of the appeals courts, but Friday's order leaves one fact unchanged: Trump's conviction remains in place, and his effort to erase it in federal court has been rejected again.
