A federal appeals court has breathed new life into former President Donald Trump’s bid to shift his New York hush money conviction into federal court, ordering a district judge to revisit the issue in light of recent Supreme Court guidance on presidential immunity.
The ruling, handed down Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, revives a core pillar of Trump’s legal strategy: that the state-level case should never have gone before a Manhattan jury and instead belongs in a federal venue, where he believes the Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity decision could upend the verdict. Trump — now returning to the White House after winning a second term — has argued that actions tied to his tenure fall squarely under constitutional protections that the state prosecution allegedly ignored, according to The Hill.
Prosecutors have long dismissed that argument as a delay tactic. But the three-judge panel signaled concern that the lower court brushed past critical questions. The judges wrote they “cannot be confident” the district court fully engaged with Trump’s claims and found that it “bypassed what we consider to be important issues bearing on the ultimate issue of good cause.”
Still, the panel steered clear of siding with Trump outright. The order is procedural, not a judgment on the merits, and the appeals court made that distinction plain. “We leave it to the able and experienced District Judge to decide whether to solicit further briefing from the parties or hold a hearing to help it resolve these issues,” the ruling stated, effectively resetting the dispute and sending it back for a fuller examination.
The conviction at issue stems from Trump’s May 2024 Manhattan trial, where jurors found him guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to payments intended to silence Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 campaign. Trump, along with many liberal and conservative commentators, has repeatedly blasted the prosecution, calling it a politically charged effort to derail his political revival.
The district court must now decide whether to supplement the record, seek new arguments, or schedule a hearing. Any decision is likely to shape the next phase of a case that could still boomerang back to the appellate courts — or to the Supreme Court — as Trump continues through his term.
