Left: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a news conference on Feb. 22, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II). Right: Then-former President Donald Trump speaks after meeting with members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at their headquarters on Jan. 31, 2024, in Washington (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik).
Manhattan's top prosecutor on Friday implored the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit not to transfer President Donald Trump's years-old New York City-based hush money case to federal court.
In May 2024, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of New York Penal Law Section 175.10, a felony offense that makes it a crime to falsify business records with the intent to commit or conceal another crime or aid in said commission or concealment. Upon his reelection as president, however, the judge overseeing the matter effectively decided there was no real form of punishment possible — while keeping Trump's convictions formally on the books.
Before and since he was found guilty in New York County, Trump has repeatedly lost the fight to have the case removed to federal court.
The case began before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a Bill Clinton appointee, in May 2023, with a removal notice.
After fast and fierce motions practice, the court ruled against Trump in July 2023 and sent the case back to the New York Supreme Court in New York County, the formal name for the trial court in Manhattan.
Appeals went nowhere. In May 2024, the 45th president was convicted. In late August 2024, he filed a second removal notice. Roughly two months later, Trump beat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election and later assumed office as the 47th president.
The prospect of Trump's sentencing hung in the air while the removal attempt continued, only to be decided in the then-president-elect's favor in the form of an "unconditional discharge" issued by New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan. Ultimately, Trump's hush money case over funds paid to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2020 election ended without any adverse legal consequences for the defendant.
Between the 2024 election and the pro-defense sentencing decision, the district court denied removal again — and denied a motion to stay the ruling. The case then went up the appellate ladder and came before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2025.
In November 2025, the appellate court sent the case back to the district court to reconsider the president's motion in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark opinion on presidential immunity.
In August of this year, Hellerstein yet again ruled against Trump, finding that the defendant's claimed grounds for a second federal removal were "neither new nor legally sufficient."
Trump appealed to the 2nd Circuit in September.
In a 66-page appellate brief, DA Alvin Bragg told the appellate court it should leave the district court's work undisturbed.
The elected prosecutor notes that Trump is litigating on parallel tracks over "his wholly private, unofficial misconduct."
"His direct appeal to the Appellate Division, First Department has been fully briefed and, by the time this Court hears this appeal, will already have been argued," the brief notes. "Now, nearly two years after his sentencing concluded the state prosecution, defendant seeks to wrench his pending appeal from the Appellate Division to this Court."
To hear Bragg tell it, Trump first delayed his removal attempt because he was waiting on the presidential immunity ruling. Later, the president's counsel conceded they should have filed "immediately" in the aftermath of that ruling, but for some reason, chose not to do so.
"Defendant's unjustified delay by itself forecloses good cause," the brief argues.
Citing the lower court order rejecting the removal bid, Bragg notes that Trump "made a strategic decision to defend" using presidential immunity claims during trial instead of as a removal basis. Then, Trump used immunity claims as a basis to dismiss after the trial — but again not as a basis for removal.
Since then, the president has availed himself of those same presidential immunity arguments in state court, Bragg notes.
"Even worse, before seeking leave to remove, defendant filed a lengthy motion asking the state court to dismiss the charges based on Trump v. United States," the brief continues. "Under well-settled law, a defendant waives removal by invoking a state court's jurisdiction to resolve the merits of a case."
Trump, for his part, argues that he was essentially forced to file in state court to preserve certain rights as sentencing loomed.
Bragg rejects the compulsion argument, at length:
Defendant's claim that he was compelled to file that motion is specious: the state court had already adjourned sentencing by more than two months, and New York law imposes no deadlines for post-trial motions before sentencing. Defendant thus freely chose to invoke the state court's jurisdiction to resolve his evidentiary claim. That choice waives removal; at minimum, it forecloses any finding of good cause.
The district attorney's brief goes on to argue that Trump's request does not even meet the statutory standards for removal because the state prosecution was not "for or relating to any act under color" of federal office.
"Rather, all of the contested evidence concerned defendant's unofficial conduct of paying hush money to an adult film actress," the brief reads.