Former US President and 2024 Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump gestures about weight lifting as he speaks at a Republican volunteer recruitment event at Fervent, a Calvary Chapel, in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 8, 2023.Â
Mario Tama | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday lost a bid to transfer to federal court his Latest York state court case related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s decision denying that effort keeps Trump on the right track to go to trial on March 25 in Manhattan Supreme Court within the case. Trump was indicted in March on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Hellerstein brushed aside Trump’s arguments that the case belonged in federal court because he was charged for conduct that was committed when he was U.S. president, and that the charged conduct related to acts performed “under color of office.”
“Trump has failed to point out that the conduct charged by the Indictment is for or related to any act performed by or for the President under color of the official acts of a President,” Hellerstein wrote in an order.Â
 “The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was purely a private item of the President a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” the judge wrote.
The records at the middle of the case mischaracterized the explanation for payments that Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, made to his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen.
Trump had characterised the cash as being for legal services when the truth is it was to reimburse Cohen for a $130,000 payment he made to Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen paid Daniels to maintain her quiet about her claim of getting had sex with Trump a decade earlier, months after Melania Trump had given birth to their son Barron Trump. The previous president denies having sex with Daniels.
Trump has pleaded not guilty within the case.
That is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
