Updated June 12, 2025 at 2:32 PM CDT
NEW YORK — An appeal hearing for President Trump's criminal conviction and sentencing was held in a federal appeals court in Manhattan Wednesday morning. It's the latest attempt by the president's legal team to ultimately overturn his conviction in his hush money case, arguing that it should be moved to federal court.
Trump and his lawyers have long fought for the case to be moved from the New York state system and into the federal one, where he could then try to have the verdict thrown out on the grounds of presidential immunity. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which is prosecuting the case, maintains it falls within state jurisdiction.
A three-judge panel overheard the arguments, which were scheduled to take about 20 minutes total and instead went over an hour, centered largely around the interpretation of a specific law that allows federal officials facing charges to move a case from state to federal court if the case involves conduct while in office. Trump's lawyers argue the law applies since evidence presented during the trial was from Trump's first term — even though the actual crime was committed in 2016, when Trump was still a candidate. In an unusual move, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an amicus brief last month in support of the president's request.
The president was represented in court by Jeffrey Wall, a private lawyer and Supreme Court litigator who also served as acting solicitor general during Trump's first term in office. Trump did not appear in court for the appeal.
"Everything about this cries out for a federal court room," Wall told the judges, arguing that testimony from former Trump officials during his first term like Hope Hicks made the case relevant to the president's official duties.
Steven Wu, the appeals chief for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, argued that the reason behind the law in question was about selecting the proper forum for a trial to take place, not to move it after sentencing. "The point is not to divert a case into federal court during the appellate process," he said.
In their questioning, which was skeptical of and open to both sides at different times, the judges all noted the unusual nature of the case, as a president has never been convicted of a felony before.
"It seems to me that we got a very big case that created a whole new world of presidential immunity, and that the boundaries are not clear at this point," said Judge Myrna Pérez, a Biden appointee.
First president to be a convicted felon
Trump was convicted in New York State Supreme Court last year on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter. While there were several cases, both civil and criminal, against Trump ahead of last year's election, this was the only criminal case to go to trial. His conviction made Trump the first president to also be a convicted felon.
Trump was sentenced ten days before being sworn in for his second term, receiving an unconditional discharge, meaning he will not face fines, prison or any other penalties, but the conviction will remain on his record. The judge in the case at the time explained that was the only lawful sentence that didn't encroach on the office of the president.
"I would just like to explain that I was treated very, very unfairly," Trump said via video at his sentencing in January, arguing that he is innocent despite the jury conviction. He vowed to appeal the conviction.
What is Trump's argument in this appeal?
Trump's argument is based on the Federal Officer Removal Statute — a law whose origins date back to the early 19th century, to allow federal officials charged with crimes in state courts to move to federal courts if the case involved conduct while in federal office, essentially with the idea that a federal court would be a more neutral space for a trial.
Legal scholars tell NPR that this particular appeal — which they say is based on a very broad interpretation of the law — is unlikely to work.
Jed Shugerman, a professor at Boston University School of Law, says it's an example of Trump's legal team using every tool at their disposal to try to overturn the president's conviction.
"Trump is exhausting every possible argument he can make," he says. "Basically, it's a 'Get Out of State Court Free' card to play, which is only playable in very narrow situations."
The president's lawyers have used this law in an attempt to get this case moved to federal court twice before. The district court judge who denied Trump's previous two appeals ruled that the crime at the heart of the case occurred before Trump was a federal official, and therefore the law does not apply.
"The problem is that President Trump's lawyers are trying to take a statute that's about whether the underlying conduct was committed within the scope of your federal office, and turn it into does the case in any way, shape or form, touch your federal office," says Stephen Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. "To do that would really stretch the statute further than it's ever been stretched before."
Vladeck says the implications of this legal tactic, if successful, are larger than just this case.
"It's not just about Trump," he says. "The more you expand the ability of current and even former federal officers to use the Federal Officer Removal Statute, the more you're widening the scope of cases that can be removed from state court to federal court in ways that really are, I think, arguably usurping the role of state courts in our system."
The president and his legal team also filed a notice of appeal with New York state's mid-level appeals court in January after his sentencing. Hearings for that appeal have yet to occur.
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