President Donald Trump's lawyers have formally appealed his criminal conviction in New York on charges of falsifying business records, saying the case was improperly based on “manufactured felony charges.”
“This is the most politically charged prosecution in our Nation’s history,” the filing begins.
“The DA, a Democrat, brought those charges in the middle of a contentious Presidential election in which President Trump was the leading Republican candidate," the lawyers wrote. "These charges against President Trump were as unprecedented as their political context,” and they involved “alleged conduct that has never been found to violate any New York law.”
“This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” said the appeal, filed Monday with the state Appellate Division’s First Department, a mid-level appeals court.
The appeal seeks to have the entire case thrown out, arguing in part that the jury was presented evidence it should not have heard related to Trump's official duties in his first term.
The Manhattan district attorney's office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment on Trump's filing.
Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in May of last year. Prosecutors argued the records were falsified to cover up a hush money payment that Trump's then-lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election.
The conviction left Trump as the only former or current president to ever be convicted of a felony.
Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, was sentenced to an “unconditional discharge” in January, just 10 days before he was sworn in again as president. The sentence means he is a convicted felon in the eyes of New York state law but faces no further penalties.
The appeals court filing makes numerous arguments seeking to have the conviction and underlying indictment tossed, including alleging that the district attorney's office hadn't shown that Trump had any "intent to defraud" when he directed payments to Cohen.
His attorneys also argued the verdict should have been tossed in light of a Supreme Court ruling issued weeks afterward that created a new standard for presidential immunity. Under the terms of that ruling, the jury shouldn’t have been allowed to hear evidence of Trump’s “official acts,” including testimony from two White House employees and public statements he made about the case while he was president, the filing argues.
Judge Juan Merchan rejected that argument before Trump's sentencing, finding Trump would have been convicted even without that evidence because of “the overwhelming evidence of guilt” the district attorney’s office presented.
The filing also contends Merchan was biased against Trump and should have recused himself, an argument Merchan and the same appeals court previously rejected.
Trump's attorney Robert Giuffra of the white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell has asked to present oral arguments to the appeals court panel that will hear the case.
The criminal case was one of four Trump was facing at the beginning of 2024 and the only one that went to trial. Two federal cases were dropped after he was elected president, and the fourth, alleging he illegally tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, has been in legal limbo since a state appeals court disqualified the prosecutor.
