The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday urged a New York appeals court to overturn Donald Trump’s felony conviction – an “extraordinary” move by federal officials on behalf of the sitting president as he seeks to erase his criminal conviction.
According to a new report in Bloomberg, Justice Department lawyers filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that Trump’s conviction last year in the Manhattan hush-money case was improper. The brief cites the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling granting presidents broad immunity for acts committed while in office.
“The trial court allowed the prosecution to present evidence of President Trump’s official acts to the jury,” government lawyers wrote in the brief. “That error requires reversal.”
Trump, the only U.S. president ever convicted of a felony, was found guilty in 2024 on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. His lawyers are now appealing the verdict at both the state and federal levels, Bloomberg noted.
The filing marks the latest attempt by Trump’s legal team to wipe his criminal record. Prosecutors alleged at trial that Trump's payments to Daniels amounted to election interference through fraud and that no official presidential acts were involved.
