A US appeals court late on Thursday declined to interfere with a lower court decision to keep Donald Trump’s already-decided criminal case, over hush money paid to an adult film star, in state court, dealing another blow to the former US president’s bid to move the case to federal court.
On 29 August, nearly three months after he was convicted in the first-ever criminal trial of a US president, Trump asked US district judge Alvin Hellerstein to move the case from New York state court in Manhattan to federal court, arguing the trial violated his constitutional rights.
Trump, the Republican nominee for president in the 5 November election, said that if the case were moved, he would ask the federal court to dismiss it altogether because jurors at trial saw evidence of his official acts as president.
