A five-judge panel of New York's Appellate Division heard President Donald Trump's bid to throw out his hush-money conviction on Thursday, and the judges' sharpest questions went to the heart of the case: whether Manhattan prosecutors properly used federal campaign-finance law to turn a state records case into 34 felonies. Trump did not attend. His lawyer, Robert Giuffra Jr., told the panel that tying the state case to the Federal Election Campaign Act was "the most obvious ground for reversal" — no local district attorney, he said, has ever prosecuted a federal candidate, "much less a presidential candidate," for what amounts to a violation of that federal law.
Under New York law, falsifying business records is a misdemeanour unless it is done to commit or conceal another crime. Prosecutors lifted the charges to felonies by telling jurors the records hid a conspiracy, and jurors were allowed to choose from violations of federal election law, tax law or bank law without having to agree on which one. Justice Troy Webber pressed the prosecution directly: "So are you relying upon FECA in order to prove your falsifying business records charge?" Assistant District Attorney Steven Wu, arguing for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, answered: "Only partially" — the federal law, he said, mattered only to show the purpose behind the records, and a federal court has twice rejected Trump's argument that federal election law bars the state case.
Trump's team also argued that the jury should never have heard evidence from his presidency — testimony about White House conversations, and his own social media posts — because the Supreme Court's 2024 ruling protects a president's official acts. Justice Martin Shulman said the testimony of former White House aide Hope Hicks "certainly seems to fit within the outer perimeters of presidential immunity." The conviction, from May 2024, covers 34 counts over the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, repaid to Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen and booked as legal expenses. Trump was sentenced in January 2025 to an unconditional discharge — a convicted felon with no jail time, fine or other penalty. The panel gave no indication of how or when it will rule. A separate appeal, arguing the case belongs in federal court, is set for argument on November 16.
What the court decides reaches far beyond one case. If the conviction stands, local prosecutors anywhere in America can reach for federal election law to build felony cases against federal candidates. If it falls, the only criminal conviction ever obtained against a president falls with it.
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