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President Trump’s hush money criminal conviction returns to the limelight Wednesday as his attorneys plead with an appeals panel to move the New York case to federal court.

The oral arguments will unfold in a Lower Manhattan courthouse down the block from where a jury convicted Trump on 34 felonies last year. It marks the biggest moment in the case since Trump was sentenced to no punishment just before his inauguration.

The president’s personal attorneys will make the case that prosecutors relied on Trump’s official acts as president at trial, so he deserves a federal forum to advance his presidential immunity claims that, if successful, would toss the verdict.

But first, Trump faces a sizable roadblock.

He already tried to move his case once before and failed. His attorneys must convince the appeals judges that Trump has “good cause” to try again, an argument that largely concerns how the Supreme Court’s immunity decision didn’t land until after his trial.

“President Trump had good cause to pursue a post-trial removal for a simple reason: he could not have raised any of the arguments set forth herein until well after his trial began,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in their written briefs.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office disagrees. It says the Supreme Court's immunity decision doesn't apply, Trump showed "lack of diligence" by waiting two months after the ruling to restart his effort and Trump's sentencing makes the battle moot, anyway.

“Even if removal were still formally available here, there were ample grounds supporting the district court’s finding of lack of good cause to permit defendant to file a second, untimely notice of removal,” Bragg’s office wrote in court filings.

Trump is backed by his own Justice Department, which asked to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the case in March, shortly after he took office.

Wednesday’s argument will also bring new attorneys into the picture.

Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who led Trump’s criminal defense team, stepped away to take senior Justice Department roles. D. John Sauer and Will Scharf, who became Trump’s go-to appellate team, also joined the administration as solicitor general and White House staff secretary, respectively.

Trump now has a new team in place from Sullivan & Cromwell, led by the elite firm’s co-chair, Robert Giuffra.

Giuffra is a trusted legal adviser for Trump and reportedly helped him negotiate his deal with the law firm Paul, Weiss.

Taking the lectern Wednesday for the team will be Jeffrey Wall, Trump’s former acting solicitor general who now heads Sullivan & Cromwell’s Supreme Court and appellate practice.

Wall will face off against Steven Wu, the appeals chief at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

They will appear before a three-judge panel on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, all appointed by Democratic presidents.

The panel comprises Raymond Lohier, an appointee of former President Obama; Susan Carney, another Obama appointee; and Myrna Pérez, an appointee of former President Biden.

No cameras are allowed inside, but the court will livestream the argument audio here. It begins at 10 a.m. EDT.

And whoever loses? They could bring the matter to the Supreme Court next.

Trump leans on emergencies to exercise vast power

Trump is declaring emergency after emergency to harness broad powers.

An economic emergency paved the way for sweeping tariffs. A crisis at the southern border has justified mass deportations. And in Los Angeles, out-of-control protests warranted the mobilization of the military on American soil.

Or so the president says — which is all that really matters.

What constitutes an “emergency” has not yet been defined by law, meaning whatever a president says goes when it comes to proclaiming a crisis.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has declared national emergencies at least eight times and further pushed the bounds of his authority in the name of various national crises, allowing him to extend his command quickly and without Congress’s help.

Under the National Emergencies Act, he’s deemed the southern border, economy and energy in crisis. He’s used apparent emergencies to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, to sanction the International Criminal Court over its stance on Israel and to crack down on China, Canada and Mexico.

Beyond that, Trump has invoked the 18th-century wartime Alien Enemies Act to allow the federal government to detain or deport natives and citizens of countries deemed foreign adversaries.

And now, he’s flirting with the calling on the Insurrection Act, a rarely used power allowing use of the military to quell a rebellion.

Trump bypassed California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to send the National Guard to the streets of Los Angeles, after protests broke out over the weekend when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducted workplace raids. His administration is also set to deploy 700 Marines to assist the National Guard.

He didn’t invoke the Insurrection Act. But it marked the first time a president has deployed a state’s National Guard without its governor’s consent since President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect civil rights protesters in Alabama in 1965.

California sued the president Monday over the “unprecedented power grab.” U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, a former President Clinton appointee and the brother of retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, was assigned the case.

Georgia’s longest trial comes to close; Willis scrutinized

The longest trial in Georgia’s history came to an anticlimactic finish Monday, putting Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) back under scrutiny.

More than three years after Willis announced she’d prosecute the alleged Young Slime Life (YSL) gang under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the last remaining defendant entered a guilty plea.

Christian Eppinger, the final defendant, entered an Alford plea Monday which let him to plead guilty to several charges while maintaining his innocence, just before his trial was set to begin. He was sentenced to 75 years, to serve 40 in prison, to run concurrently with 45 years he’s already serving, according to the Atlanta Journal........

© The Hill