'All eyes on Judge Merchan': Expert says Trump may prevail in moving hush money case

Former President Donald Trump appeared to have lost his bid on Friday to remove the Manhattan criminal hush money case to federal court, putting it back in the hands of Justice Juan Merchan, and potentially allowing sentencing to move forward in mid-September — although the Trump camp denies that the order rejecting the motion took place.

Some legal experts speculated that, assuming this reporting is correct, Trump won't likely get a second chance at this bid for removal.

But Ryan Goodman, former special counsel at the Department of Defense, told CNN he thinks Trump could end up prevailing after all.

"There is another Trump case that I want to ask you about, and that is the New York hush money case," said anchor Brianna Keilar. "Trump was found guilty at the end of May, but he hasn't yet been sentenced, and since then you had this Supreme Court decision on immunity, on official acts versus unofficial acts. Today, a federal judge rejected Trump's attempt to move the case to federal court, but did give him the option to refile his request. What's going on here, and can Trump likely succeed in getting the case moved?"

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"I think he has a possibility of it working," said Goodman. "His arguments are not trivial."

The way this is playing out, said Goodman, is that "he's basically going to say — and he's saying this in part of his filing — some of the evidence that was used against me at trial, like Hope Hicks' testimony when she was White House communications director, is official communications. And now we know from the Supreme Court — this is new, but now we know that that's official conduct. And so if that's so, maybe this should have been in federal court. That's his argument."

The ball is now in Merchan's court.

"He has to determine whether or not he wants to give Donald Trump leave, which means allowing him to refile in federal court. So all eyes on Judge Merchan, and I think he might grant it."

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