Judge Says No — Again — to Moving Trump's Hush-Money Case to Federal Court
A federal judge has said no — for the third time — to Donald Trump's attempt to move his criminal hush-money case from a New York state court to a federal court. US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled on August 28, 2026 that Trump's arguments were "neither new nor legally sufficient." The decision was reported by The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, and CNBC.
Hellerstein also rejected Trump's effort to overturn the conviction itself, saying Trump had waited too long to bring the challenge. This is the latest in a series of rulings against Trump's repeated attempts to move the case out of state court.
The key disagreement is about presidential immunity — the idea that a president should be protected from legal consequences for certain official actions taken while in office. Trump argued that a 2024 Supreme Court decision expanding that protection should shield him from the conviction. Hellerstein disagreed. "Paying hush money to an adult film star or engaging in a cover-up of an embarrassment are not subsumed in presidential immunity," he wrote. He also made clear he would not simply rubber-stamp an earlier decision from a higher court. "Federal district courts are not certifying clerks," the judge wrote.
The case goes back to a $130,000 payment that Trump allegedly made through his fixer Michael Cohen to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump while he was married. Prosecutors said the payment was meant to keep Daniels quiet and avoid bad publicity during his 2016 presidential campaign. In 2024, a New York City jury convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records. A misdemeanor is a minor crime, but in New York, falsifying business records becomes a felony — a more serious crime — when done to cover up another crime. Trump became the first US president convicted of a crime. Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him to an unconditional discharge on January 10, 2025, meaning no jail time and no fine, but the felony convictions stayed on his record.
The August 28 ruling came after a November 2025 order from the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, a higher court that reviews lower-court decisions. That court told Hellerstein to look at the case again in light of the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, but did not tell him how to decide. The question of whether presidential immunity applied was left for Hellerstein to answer.
Trump's legal team quickly said it would appeal and called the judgment "baseless and lawless." In a statement, the team said: "President Trump will be filing a powerful appeal, and will continue defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn."
The hush-money case is the only one of four criminal indictments Trump faced in 2023 to actually reach trial. The other cases — involving classified documents and interference in the 2020 election — were dropped after Trump won re-election in 2024.
The broader context here is one of procedural exhaustion. Hellerstein's tone throughout the ruling signals frustration with arguments his court has now rejected three times. His refusal to act as a "certifying clerk" makes the point that lower-court judges still exercise their own judgment, even when a higher court asks them to take another look.
Trump's legal team now goes back to the 2nd Circuit, the same court that sent the case to Hellerstein in November. The appeal will test whether that higher court engages with Hellerstein's reasoning on immunity or avoids the constitutional question entirely by upholding the decision on procedural grounds, such as timing. Either way, the conviction stays on Trump's record for now. And the Supreme Court's immunity precedent, which Trump's team has used across several legal battles, runs into its clearest pushback here: a federal judge saying there is a line between what a president does as part of the job and personal conduct aimed at swaying an election.
