As Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump fo­cus­es on glob­al trade deals and dis­patch­ing troops to aid his im­mi­gra­tion crack­down, his lawyers are fight­ing to erase the hush mon­ey crim­i­nal con­vic­tion that punc­tu­at­ed his re-elec­tion cam­paign last year and made him the first for­mer — and now cur­rent — U.S. pres­i­dent found guilty of a crime.

On Wednes­day, that fight land­ed in a fed­er­al ap­peals court in Man­hat­tan, where a three-judge pan­el heard ar­gu­ments in Trump’s long-run­ning bid to get the New York case moved from state court to fed­er­al court so he can then seek to have it thrown out on pres­i­den­tial im­mu­ni­ty grounds.

It’s one way he’s try­ing to get the his­toric ver­dict over­turned.

The judges in the 2nd U.S. Cir­cuit Court of Ap­peals spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the ap­pel­late chief for Man­hat­tan dis­trict at­tor­ney’s of­fice, which pros­e­cut­ed the case and wants it to re­main in state court.

At turns skep­ti­cal and re­cep­tive to both sides’ ar­gu­ments on the weighty and sel­dom-test­ed le­gal is­sues un­der­ly­ing the pres­i­dent’s re­quest, the judges said they would take the mat­ter un­der ad­vise­ment and is­sue a rul­ing at a lat­er date.

But there was at least one thing all par­ties agreed on: It is a high­ly un­usu­al case.

Trump lawyer Jef­frey Wall called the pres­i­dent “a class of one” and Judge Su­san L. Car­ney, not­ed that it was “anom­alous” for a de­fen­dant to seek to trans­fer a case to fed­er­al court af­ter it has been de­cid­ed in state court.

Car­ney was nom­i­nat­ed to the 2nd Cir­cuit by De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma. The oth­er judges who heard ar­gu­ments, Ray­mond J. Lo­hi­er, Jr. and Myr­na Pérez were nom­i­nat­ed by Oba­ma and De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, re­spec­tive­ly.

The Re­pub­li­can pres­i­dent is ask­ing the fed­er­al ap­peals court to in­ter­vene af­ter a low­er-court judge twice re­ject­ed the move. As part of the re­quest, Trump wants the court to seize con­trol of the crim­i­nal case and then ul­ti­mate­ly de­cide his ap­peal of the ver­dict, which is now pend­ing in a state ap­pel­late court.

Trump’s Jus­tice De­part­ment — now part­ly run by his for­mer crim­i­nal de­fense lawyers — backs his bid to move the case to fed­er­al court. If he los­es, he could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Every­thing about this cries out for fed­er­al court,” Wall ar­gued.

Wall, a for­mer act­ing U.S. so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al, ar­gued that Trump’s his­toric pros­e­cu­tion vi­o­lat­ed the U.S. Supreme Court’s pres­i­den­tial im­mu­ni­ty rul­ing, which was de­cid­ed last Ju­ly, about a month af­ter the hush mon­ey ver­dict. The rul­ing reined in pros­e­cu­tions of ex-pres­i­dents for of­fi­cial acts and re­strict­ed pros­e­cu­tors from point­ing to of­fi­cial acts as ev­i­dence that a pres­i­dent’s un­of­fi­cial ac­tions were il­le­gal.

Trump’s lawyers ar­gue that pros­e­cu­tors rushed to tri­al in­stead of wait­ing for the Supreme Court’s pres­i­den­tial im­mu­ni­ty de­ci­sion, and that they erred by show­ing ju­rors ev­i­dence that should not have been al­lowed un­der the rul­ing, such as for­mer White House staffers de­scrib­ing how Trump re­act­ed to news cov­er­age of the hush mon­ey deal and tweets he sent while pres­i­dent in 2018.

“The dis­trict at­tor­ney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall ar­gued. “He doesn’t have to in­tro­duce this ev­i­dence.”

Steven Wu, the ap­pel­late chief for the dis­trict at­tor­ney’s of­fice, coun­tered that Trump was too late in seek­ing to move the case to fed­er­al court. Nor­mal­ly, such a re­quest must be made with­in 30 days of an ar­raign­ment, but a fed­er­al ap­peals court in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. re­cent­ly ruled that ex­cep­tions can be made if “good cause” is shown. Trump hasn’t done that, Wu ar­gued.

While “this de­fen­dant is an un­usu­al de­fen­dant,” Wu said, there is noth­ing un­usu­al about a de­fen­dant rais­ing sub­se­quent court de­ci­sions, such as the Supreme Court’s im­mu­ni­ty rul­ing for Trump, when they ap­peal their con­vic­tions. That ap­peal, he ar­gued, should stay in state court.

Trump was con­vict­ed in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of fal­si­fy­ing busi­ness records to con­ceal a hush mon­ey pay­ment to adult film ac­tor Stormy Daniels, whose af­fair al­le­ga­tions threat­ened to up­end his 2016 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. Trump de­nies her claim and said he did noth­ing wrong. It was the on­ly one of his four crim­i­nal cas­es to go to tri­al.

Trump’s lawyers first sought to move the case to fed­er­al court fol­low­ing his March 2023 in­dict­ment, ar­gu­ing that fed­er­al of­fi­cers in­clud­ing for­mer pres­i­dents have the right to be tried in fed­er­al court for charges aris­ing from “con­duct per­formed while in of­fice.” Part of the crim­i­nal case in­volved checks he wrote while he was pres­i­dent.

They tried again af­ter his con­vic­tion, about two months af­ter the Supreme Court is­sued its im­mu­ni­ty rul­ing.

U.S. Dis­trict Judge Alvin Heller­stein, who was nom­i­nat­ed by De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton, de­nied both re­quests, rul­ing in part that Trump’s con­vic­tion in­volved his per­son­al life, not his work as pres­i­dent.

Wu ar­gued Wednes­day that Trump and his lawyers should’ve act­ed more im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the Supreme Court ruled, and that by wait­ing they waived their right to seek a trans­fer. Wall re­spond­ed that they de­layed seek­ing to move the case to fed­er­al court be­cause they were try­ing to re­solve the mat­ter by rais­ing the im­mu­ni­ty ar­gu­ment with the tri­al judge, Juan Mer­chan.

Mer­chan ul­ti­mate­ly re­ject­ed Trump’s re­quest to throw out the con­vic­tion on im­mu­ni­ty grounds and sen­tenced him on Jan. 10 to an un­con­di­tion­al dis­charge, leav­ing his con­vic­tion in­tact but spar­ing him any pun­ish­ment. —NEW YORK (AP)

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Sto­ry by MICHAEL R. SISAK | As­so­ci­at­ed Press