A federal judge in Manhattan has again declined President Donald Trump’s efforts to transfer, or “remove,” the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal case against him to federal court in an effort to erase his 2024 conviction in the so-called hush money case.
In considering whether Trump had shown the requisite “good cause” for delaying his second attempt to remove the case to federal court, Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old judge in the Southern District of New York, noted that even after the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, Trump first tried to litigate that issue in New York state court.
That, according to Hellerstein, is antithetical to good cause: A litigant “cannot seek victory in one court, and then, when it becomes apparent that the court will rule against him, seek to remove his case to another court,” he wrote.


