Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected President Donald Trump’s bid to move his hush money case to federal court on Friday, marking the third time the judge has blocked the effort and keeping the conviction in New York state court where Trump was tried and found guilty.
Hellerstein ruled that Trump’s arguments for removal were “neither new nor legally sufficient” and that the president “failed to show good cause and diligence” in pursuing the transfer. The decision came after an appeals court in November 2025 had ordered Hellerstein to reconsider his earlier rejection, finding he had brushed aside important issues in Trump’s request to move the case.
Trump was convicted in May 2024 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose claim of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier had threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. He received an unconditional discharge sentence, which left his conviction intact but spared him any punishment.
Trump’s legal team has argued that a July 2024 Supreme Court ruling granting presidents immunity for official acts should allow him to overturn the conviction. However, Hellerstein rejected this argument, stating that “paying hush money to an adult film star or engaging in a cover-up of an embarrassment are not subsumed in presidential immunity.”
During oral arguments in February 2026, Hellerstein took issue with Trump’s legal strategy after the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. Rather than immediately seeking to move the case to federal court, Trump’s lawyers first asked the state trial judge, Juan Merchan, to throw out the verdict on immunity grounds. This delay, the judge suggested, amounted to a “strategic decision” that cost Trump the right to pursue remedies in federal court. Hellerstein said Trump’s lawyers “sought two bites at the apple,” a legal approach the law disfavors.
Trump’s attorney Jeffrey Wall had argued that prosecutors rushed to trial and that Trump’s legal team faced time pressure after the Supreme Court’s ruling, with sentencing scheduled just 10 days later. Hellerstein rejected this reasoning, noting that Trump’s lawyers could have filed a notice of removal to federal court immediately without waiting for the state court process to unfold.
In his written ruling Friday, Hellerstein stated that “Trump’s delay in filing for removal constitutes a ‘quintessential strategic decision,’ and the ‘fact that he later came to view that decision as a poor one is not sufficient, by itself, to establish cause.'”
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said the president would appeal, calling Hellerstein’s ruling “baseless and lawless” and asserting that the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and other legal precedent “mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be removed to federal court, and immediately overturned and dismissed.” Trump is also challenging his conviction through the state court appellate process, which remains pending.
Sources
- U.S. News & World Report — Judge Hellerstein’s rejection of Trump’s removal bid on August 28, 2026, the third such rejection, and details of the oral arguments in February 2026
- The Hill — Hellerstein’s written ruling and Trump’s legal team’s response statement
- CTV News — Trump’s conviction on 34 counts in May 2024, the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, and the appeals court’s November 2025 order for reconsideration
- Supreme Court of the United States — The July 1, 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States establishing presidential immunity for official acts
