Prosecutors defend ‘mountain of evidence’ as Trump lawyer tries to toss out felonies

Manhattan prosecutors told a New York appeals court that a “mountain of evidence” supports President Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions, as his lawyers argued the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling should undo them, All Rise News reports.

Reporter Adam Klasfeld writes that a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, weighed whether the immunity decision applies retroactively to the verdict in the hush-money case, which centered on falsified business records tied to payments to Stormy Daniels. Trump’s lawyers, led by Sullivan & Cromwell’s Robert Giuffra, argued the jury saw evidence the ruling bars, including posts from his official Twitter account and testimony from aides like Hope Hicks.

Giuffra said responding to scandals “goes to core presidential conduct.”

Steven Wu, arguing for District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, said the disputed material was a sliver of the case. He said the immunity argument covers a couple of lines in about 20 pages of transcript, in a trial with a 5,000-page record, and that Trump objects to four tweets among 500 exhibits. Wu said the record shows Trump’s conversations with Hicks were personal, and that any error would be harmless given the evidence of guilt.

Klasfeld writes that the appeal will likely turn on legal questions such as federal preemption: whether New York can have a jury find a federal election-law violation to make the records charges a felony. Wu argued the state can protect election integrity even if the underlying conspiracy involves violating federal law.

Justices Shlomo Hagler and Martin Shulman appeared to take those issues seriously, while Trump’s team seemed to have a harder time with Justices Troy K. Webber, Manuel Mendez and Bahaati E. Pitt-Burke, said Klasfeld.

The late federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who died abruptly last month after being set to oversee the blockbuster trial of captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, twice rejected Trump’s immunity arguments, Klasfeld notes.