NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- President Donald Trump formally appealed his conviction on 34 criminal counts in New York state’s so-called hush money case, arguing the verdict was the result of a flawed trial and a politically charged prosecution that sought to derail his 2024 presidential campaign.
In a filing late Monday with a New York appeals court, Trump attorney Robert Giuffra said the felony charges levied by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg were “manufactured” under a “convoluted legal theory,” and the judge failed to remove himself from the case over alleged conflicts of interest.
A jury of 12 New Yorkers in May 2024 found Trump guilty of falsifying business records dozens of times to conceal a hush-money payment to a porn star, a conspiracy that prosecutors said deprived voters of vital information before the 2016 election.
“Like every criminal defendant in a New York courtroom, President Trump was entitled to a fair trial before a properly instructed jury and a neutral judge,” Giuffra said. “Instead, he was convicted after a trial that featured repeated and clear violations of his constitutional rights, federal law, and New York law, presided over by a judge who was required to recuse.”
Trump, 79, had faced as long as four years in prison when he was sentenced on Jan. 10 by Justice Juan Merchan in Manhattan. But Merchan sentenced Trump to no jail, probation or fine, saying the unusually light term was a direct result of a US Supreme Court ruling months earlier that gave the president broad immunity for acts while in office.
Bragg’s office didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Trump’s appeal filing focused on claims his defense team made throughout the criminal case, including that Bragg improperly elevated a series of misdemeanors into a felony by using a New York law in a way that was never intended.
“After years of fruitless investigation into decade-old, baseless allegations — and under immense political pressure to criminally charge President Donald J. Trump for something — New York’s district attorney manufactured felony charges against a once-former and now-sitting president,” Trump’s lawyer said in the filing.