Trump makes desperate push to erase his 34 felony convictions after midterm blowout

A New York appeals court will be asked on Thursday to throw out Donald Trump's conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The case made history in May 2024, when the verdict turned Trump into the first former, and now current, US president with a criminal conviction. The historic ruling did not stop him from returning to the White House, and it brought no punishment.The charges centered on a $130,000 payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels, made to obscure the money's true purpose.Trump denies any wrongdoing, and has turned to state and federal courts in hopes of unwinding the verdict. He is not expected to attend Thursday's court session. The appeal turns on complex legal disputes, but the political overtones are hard to miss.President Donald Trump after a jury found him guilty on all 34 counts in his criminal trial in New York State Supreme Court in New York (Reuters)The very first paragraph of one of the Trump team's court filings contends the case was the flimsy product of “immense political pressure” on a Democratic prosecutor to go after Trump — rhetoric that echoes the Republican president's own oft-repeated claims in the court of public opinion.In court papers, Trump's attorneys have assailed prosecutors' legal theory as “a house of cards” built on a shaky combination of alleged state and federal offenses, with “clearly insufficient” evidence and problematic jury instructions.The appeal also concerns whether jurors should have been allowed to hear testimony about supposed White House conversations, workflow and even Trump social media posts during his first term.His lawyers cite presidential immunity for official acts, and they argue his official conduct included responding to the Daniels drama once it became public in 2018.Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims to have slept with US President Donald Trump over a decade ago, opens Berlin erotic fair "Venus" in Berlin in 2018 (AFP/Getty)“When a president addresses the nation to defend himself from allegations of personal misconduct (as all presidents do), or discusses such communications with his aides, he is carrying out his constitutional duties and is protected by immunity,” lawyer Robert Giuffra Jr. wrote in a filing this October.Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office counters that the legal theory and jury instructions were legitimate and that the White House-related evidence was fair game.Some was public record, some described general office practices, and the conversations were “unofficial conduct,” prosecutors say.“A president’s discussions about a purely private matter, even with a White House advisor, do not constitute ‘official acts for which the president is immune,’” Bragg's appeals chief, Steven Wu, wrote in a filing in July.Besides, he said, there was “a mountain” of other evidence against Trump.The president has been licking his wounds in the wake of the American public’s repudiation of the MAGA agenda in the wake of the midterms (AP)The trial involved $130,000 that Daniels got from Trump's then-fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, weeks before the 2016 election. The money bought, for a time, her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with the married Trump a decade earlier. He says that nothing sexual happened between them.Trump's company reimbursed Cohen in 2017 and logged those payments as legal expenses. Saying the transactions all were meant to keep unflattering information about Trump away from the electorate, prosecutors argue that he “orchestrated a conspiracy” that violated federal campaign finance laws, among others.Trump's lawyers argue there's only "weak" evidence that he even knew about Cohen's dealings at the time. His trial attorneys also said that payments to Cohen were indeed legal expenses, and that any hush money expended on Trump's behalf wasn't hidden campaign spending, just an effort to avoid embarrassing his family.The distinction matters because, under New York law, falsifying business records isn't a felony unless it's done with an intent to commit or conceal a separate crime.While pursuing his state appeal, Trump has also been trying to shift the case to federal court and have it dismissed on immunity grounds. A federal judge said no — for the third time — in August. Trump's attorneys are appealing that decision, and arguments are set for Nov. 16. The conviction still nettles Trump enough that he denounced it on social media as recently as September.