Trump's lawyers ask a New York appeals panel to overturn his 2024 hush money conviction on 34 felony counts

What happened

Lawyers for President Donald Trump are scheduled to argue Thursday in a Manhattan courtroom that his 2024 criminal conviction should be thrown out, ABC News and CBS News reported. A New York jury convicted Trump of 34 felony counts in May 2024, and his attorneys now need a majority of a five-judge panel to agree he was wrongly convicted.

The appeal is before the Appellate Division, First Department, which CBS News described as New York's mid-level appeals court. According to CBS News, lawyers for Trump and for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will each get 15 minutes to answer the judges' questions.

The case behind the appeal

The 2024 trial

Prosecutors alleged a scheme to hide a $130,000 payment that Michael Cohen, then Trump's lawyer, made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election, CBS News reported. The payment was made in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, which he has denied.

A unanimous jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records. ABC News reported that the 34 counts matched each of the payments Trump made to reimburse his lawyer, which prosecutors said were falsified to conceal their true purpose. The trial kept Trump, then the presumptive Republican nominee, in court for six weeks that spring.

Sentencing after the election

After Trump won the 2024 presidential election, he was sentenced to an unconditional discharge because he was days away from his inauguration, ABC News reported. At sentencing, Trump said, "It's been a political witch hunt." Todd Blanche, his lead defense attorney at trial, is now U.S. attorney general, and another former defense lawyer, Emil Bove III, is now a federal judge, according to CBS News.

What Trump's lawyers argue

Trump is now represented by the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, led on the case by co-chair Robert Giuffra, CBS News reported. An Oct. 16 filing opened by saying the case "should have never been brought." ABC News reported that the team called it the "most politically charged prosecution in our Nation's history."

Immunity and recusal

The defense argues that part of the trial should have been shielded by presidential immunity, according to both outlets. ABC News reported the lawyers also say the trial judge should have stepped aside. Giuffra wrote that the key question is whether White House statements and strategy introduced at trial were official acts.

State law and federal election rules

CBS News reported that Trump's lawyers say the payment should have fallen under federal election laws, which they argue override state prosecutions, and that prosecutors failed to prove an "intent to defraud." ABC News reported the appeal also accuses the district attorney of building a felony by stacking time-barred misdemeanors under a convoluted legal theory.

What prosecutors say

Lawyers for Bragg argue Trump was convicted of a crime that is regularly prosecuted in New York, ABC News reported. They wrote that the charges came from Trump's "unofficial, nonpresidential conduct" and that presidential immunity does not apply. Their filing said "a mountain of evidence unaffected by any claim of official presidential immunity overwhelmingly established defendant's guilt."

CBS News reported that the prosecution has described the 2016 plan as "a conspiracy to defraud the American public and government regulators."

A related court development

The arguments come a week after the death of Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who oversaw a separate, yearslong effort by Trump to move the case out of state court, CBS News reported. Hellerstein repeatedly rejected Trump's arguments, writing that reimbursing Cohen "cannot be considered the performance of a constitutional duty."

What to watch next

• Oral arguments before the five-judge Appellate Division, First Department panel, scheduled for Thursday.
• The panel's ruling on whether to reverse the conviction, which needs a majority of the five judges.
• A likely further appeal: CBS News reported both sides have indicated the case is headed to New York's Court of Appeals and potentially the U.S. Supreme Court.