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Donald Trump's legal team's attempt to persuade a judge to move the former president's upcoming hush money trial in New York from a state to a federal court by calling a surprise witness appears to have failed.
In a hearing on Tuesday, District Judge Alvin Hellerstein seemed to be skeptical of Trump's lawyers' arguments that the falsifying business records case should not take place in a state court as the former president's actions that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg focused on took place during his time as president.
In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over allegations he instructed his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep an alleged affair she and Trump had a secret ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen was reimbursed for the payment, which was listed by The Trump Organization as legal fees. Trump denies having an affair with Daniels in 2006.
During Tuesday's hearing, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche argued that the payments to Cohen were accurate as they were made while Cohen was on a "retainer" to the former president.
Judge Hellerstein said that Trump's lawyers haven't provided any other proof of any legal services provided by Cohen as special counsel to the president, apart from the reimbursement for the money he paid to Daniels. "There's no proof of what he did," Hellerstein said, via CNN.
Blanche also made an unexpected move by calling on the Trump Organization's chief legal officer, Alan Garten, to testify that Trump hired Cohen as a personal attorney in 2017 when he was in office in order to help separate personal and presidential business.
Garten also testified that The Trump Organization forwarded matters involving the president and then first lady Melania Trump to Cohen, including the $130,000 reimbursement.
"My understanding was to reimburse him for the payments that he had made as part of the Clifford settlement agreement and also to compensate him for the work in the role that he was playing as counsel," Garten said.
However, as noted by MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin, who was present at the hearing, Garten was "hardly the slam-dunk witness" as expected by Trump's legal team as he confirmed that he had never seen any retainer agreement with Cohen and didn't know what other services Cohen provided.
"He could not articulate exactly why Cohen was hired as Trump's personal attorney except to say that he and Eric Trump wanted to ensure that they did not undermine Trump's separation from the business, as advised by his lawyers at Morgan Lewis," Rubin tweeted.
"There was an argument on whether Trump has a colorable federal defense on preemption grounds, but the die was cast once Hellerstein accepted the crux of the DA's argument: That Cohen was Trump's personal lawyer, paid with Trump's personal funds, and handled personal affairs."
Rubin added that Garten "could not attest" to some of Trump's legal team's key points and also made some "damaging admissions" during his testimony.
"It was a bold gamble without any payoff. And something tells me that tonight, Todd Blanche, Trump's shiniest new legal toy, is no longer feeling so golden," Rubin wrote.
Speaking to CBS News, Cohen said he didn't "see the relevance" of Garten's testimony. "The documentary evidence in the possession of the district attorney contradicts Garten," Cohen added.
Speaking on Tuesday, Hellerstein said he would make a decision in which court Trump's falsifying business records trial should take place within two weeks, but he appears ready to reject the former president's legal team's calls to move it to a federal court.
"The act for which the president has been indicted does not relate to anything under color of his office," Hellerstein said, as reported by CNN.
"Cohen was hired as a private matter to take care of a private matter," the judge added. "The fact that it was a president who made that private hiring does not change the facts or the legal principle to be derived from the facts."
The falsifying business records trial is slated to begin in New York in March 2024.
Trump's legal team has been contacted for comment via email.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more