Judge poised to slap down Trump request to move New York criminal case

Ex-president’s legal team has argued that hush payments were made in Trump’s capacity as president

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team suffered a setback on Tuesday as a federal judge commented that his argument for moving a trial on 34 counts of falsifying business records out of state court was “far-fetched”.

The comments from Judge Alvin Hellerstein were reported by NBC 4; the criminal prosecution is one of two the former president is now embroiled in as his legal entanglements continue to worsen.

Mr Trump is accused in New York of falsifying business records dozens of times with the purpose of hiding a well-reported hush money scheme in which he supposedly paid his former attorney to recompense payments that the attorney, Michael Cohen, made to adult film star Stormy Daniels and other women with tales of alleged extramarital affairs with his boss.

The former president has denied both the allegations of extramarital affairs as well as his own supposed role in covering them up; his ex-attorney Cohen, however, has explained his boss’s role in the scheme.

Mr Trump’s attorneys had sought to see the case moved from court in New York state to a federal jurisdiction, as part of an effort to see the case dismissed on grounds that he supposedly made the payments in 2017 as part of his work as president. On Tuesday, Mr Hellerstein appeared to scoff at that argument.

“It sounds a little far fetched, but that's the argument,” Mr Hellerstein reportedly said. He is set to make a final ruling on this matter within two weeks.

He also added that as of yet, the Trump attorneys had provided “no reason to believe that an equal measure of justice could not be rendered by the state court”, and given no convincing evidence or arguments to support the idea that there was a “relationship to any official act of the president” and the payments.

Mr Trump’s attorneys are defending him from more than 60 felony counts over two indictments; the ex-president is also accused of illegally retaining classified materials and other presidential documents at his resort at Mar-a-Lago.

The ex-president continues to insist that the prosecutions are part of a political effort against him even as that argument appears to be losing traction among some establishment Republicans.