Federal Judge Denies Trump’s Latest Bid To Shift New York ‘Hush‑Money’ Conviction to Federal Court

A federal judge on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, once again refused President Donald J. Trump’s effort to transfer his New York state conviction over a 2016 hush‑money payment into federal court, preserving the state‑court verdict that has been under appeal. U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein wrote that the latest removal request failed to present new or legally sufficient grounds and amounted to an attempt to get a “second bite at the apple.”

Hellerstein’s order said the conduct at the center of the case — payments to an adult‑film actor and efforts to cover them up — did not qualify as an official act immune from prosecution, and he criticized the timing and strategy of the president’s legal team. The judge noted the 2nd U.S. Circuit had asked him to reconsider his earlier rulings in light of the Supreme Court’s July 2024 decision on presidential immunity, but he concluded the new filings did not change his prior analysis.

The conviction in the case stems from a May 2024 jury verdict in Manhattan that found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to a $130,000 payment connected to Stormy Daniels. Trump has pursued parallel routes to overturn that outcome — state‑court appeals and repeated attempts to move the dispute into the federal system on immunity grounds. Hellerstein’s ruling keeps the procedural posture tilted toward the state appeals process for now.

Hellerstein emphasized that federal removal is not a vehicle for relitigating matters already addressed in state court and repeatedly framed the president’s filings as a strategic delay. The judge wrote that Trump’s lawyers first sought relief in state court and only later sought removal, undermining claims they had pursued federal relief with the diligence the law requires.

The White House legal team issued a forceful statement calling the decision wrong and vowing an immediate appeal; a spokesman characterized the indictment and conviction as politically motivated. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office did not immediately issue a public comment, and prosecutors have previously argued the charged conduct was private, not official, and therefore properly adjudicated under state law.

Legally, the ruling narrows the routes available to Trump to erase the conviction. Moving the case to federal court could have allowed a federal judge to reassess whether evidence admitted at trial implicated official acts covered by the Supreme Court’s immunity decision; Hellerstein concluded that such a theory did not apply to the factual record here.

The administration and Trump’s lawyers are expected to seek expedited appellate review in the federal circuit and may pursue the issue up to the Supreme Court. At the same time, the state‑court appeals that challenge the conviction’s merits remain active, meaning multiple parallel legal tracks could continue to produce new developments in the coming weeks and months.