(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Trump fails in last-ditch effort to get the Stormy Daniels case removed to federal court [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-09-03 Federal Judge tells Trump to quit bothering him On Tuesday, a federal judge denied Trump's second and last-ditch bid to transfer his New York Stormy Daniels hush money case to federal court. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York found that there was no good cause to grant Trump’s lawyers permission to even file a motion. A request they had made on Tuesday morning after failing to do so last week in their initial attempt to delay the case. Kudos to Hellerstein for wasting zero time in swatting away this unfounded attempt to delay. NBC News explained it thus: The judge's order said that in arguing “good cause” to move the case, Trump primarily argued that the state judge presiding over the criminal case, Juan Merchan, is biased against him and that the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity ruling from July presents a valid federal defense for the hush money case. They went on to explain the judge’s reasoning Hellerstein rejected both arguments, finding first that a state court judge’s alleged bias does not present a federal question that would justify jurisdiction in a federal court Hellerstein also held that his July 2023 conclusion he had made that removal of the case was not warranted — which followed briefing and an evidentiary hearing — remained the same because “the hush money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.” (Bolding mine) Not only did Trump’s lawyers fail in their intended aim, they may well have also shot their client in the foot. The original NY trial judge, Juan Merchan, can now use this decision as a reason to keep the sentencing date of Sept 18th on the calendar. In a scheduled Sept 16 conference to discuss the future of the case, Trump was sure to argue that his sentencing should be delayed until his immunity issues were resolved. But because Trump’s lawyers filed to have the trial removed to federal court, we now have a federal judge on record saying that immunity is not an issue. Call it the law of unintended consequences — or, what happens when you hire Murphy as your lawyer. But this is hardly the first time Trump’s lawyers have proved incompetent. A case study in incompetence Last Thursday, his lawyers had tried again to have the Stormy Daniel’s hush money case removed from a New York State court to a federal court. The federal court rejected the filing. Not on the merits. But because Donald’s legal team either did not know — or ignored — the proper procedure for the process. The lawyers submitted nearly three dozen documents with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, asking Senior U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to remove the case to federal jurisdiction. In the notice, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove pleaded for the court to take the reins of the “zombie” case away from both Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and NY Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. The removal filing cites “evidence of local hostilities” as well as repeat “violations” of the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity. On Saturday, the court, in a docket entry, rejected Trump’s removal effort as a “deficient pleading”. Why? The court explained: “The filing is deficient for the following reason(s): the PDF attached to the docket entry for the pleading is not correct; the wrong event type was used to file the pleading; Court’s leave has not been granted; the order granting permission to file the pleading was not attached.” If you are going to screw up, you might as well be thorough. Mindful that Trump legal bozos needed their hands held, the court went on to helpfully explain how to properly file the request — with advice on how to correct their basic filing errors. The court also advised Trump’s team they needed to refile with the government’s consent or leave of court — and spanked the lawyers for not having asked for the required permission in the first place. Trump’s lawyers were evidently molded from the same dismal clay as their client — dumb and arrogant. With this cheat sheet, Trump’s crack legal team tried again today. They raised the same old issues of the Marchan’d daughter being a Democratic consultant. And some additional nonsense about the Supreme Court's immunity ruling. We now know the result. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/3/2267668/-Trump-fails-in-last-ditch-effort-to-get-the-Stormy-Daniels-case-removed-to-federal-court?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/