By MICHAEL R. SISAK, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s quest to erase his criminal conviction heads to a federal appeals court Wednesday. It’s one way he’s trying to get last year’s hush money verdict overturned.

A three-judge panel is set to hear arguments in Trump’s long-running fight to get the New York case moved from state court to federal court, where he could then try to have the verdict thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

The Republican is asking the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene after a lower-court judge twice rejected the move. As part of the request, Trump wants the federal appeals court to seize control of the criminal case and then ultimately decide his appeal of the verdict, which is now pending in a state appellate court.

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The 2nd Circuit should “determine once and for all that this unprecedented criminal prosecution of a former and current President of the United States belongs in federal court,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a court filing.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Trump’s case, wants it to stay in state court. Trump’s Justice Department — now partly run by his former criminal defense lawyers — backs his bid to move the case to federal court.

If Trump loses, he could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim and said he did nothing wrong. It was the only one of his four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump’s lawyers first sought to move the case to federal court following his March 2023 indictment, arguing that federal officers including former presidents have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks he wrote while he was president.

They tried again after his conviction, arguing that Trump’s historic prosecution violated his constitutional rights and ran afoul of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, which was decided about a month after the hush money trial ended.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after arriving on Air Force One, Tuesday, June 10, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The ruling reins in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts and restricts prosecutors in pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied both requests, ruling in part that Trump’s conviction involved his personal life, not his work as president.

In a four-page ruling, Hellerstein wrote that nothing about the high court’s ruling affected his prior conclusion that hush money payments at issue in Trump’s case “were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.”

Trump’s lawyers argue that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, and that prosecutors erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under the ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

FILE – Emil Bove, attorney for then former President Donald Trump, attends Manhattan criminal court during Trump’s sentencing in the hush money case in New York, Jan. 10, 2025. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via AP, File)

Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche is now the deputy U.S. attorney general, the Justice Department’s second-in-command. Another of his lawyers, Emil Bove, has a high-ranking Justice Department position.

The trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, rejected Trump’s requests to throw out the conviction on presidential immunity grounds and sentenced him on Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Appearing by video at his sentencing, Trump called the case a “political witch hunt,” “a weaponization of government” and “an embarrassment to New York.”

The Texas Rangers have been among the worst hitting teams in the majors this season. But don’t be fooled by that, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli cautioned before the game.

“They haven’t swung it this year so far,” Baldelli said pregame. “But if you look at their lineup, it’s a very dangerous lineup.”

It sure was on Tuesday. Hours after he said that, the Rangers erupted for a season-high 16 runs on 17 hits in a 16-4 walloping of the Twins in the series opener at Target Field.

After skirting around trouble in his first three innings, Simeon Woods Richardson, recalled from Triple-A on Tuesday, couldn’t evade it in the fourth inning. The inning began when Byron Buxton couldn’t handle a ball hit at him that he leapt for and got a glove on. The play went for a two-base error, setting the stage for what would become a three-run inning for the Rangers (32-35).

“You can’t control that,” Woods Richardson said of the defense behind him, which committed two errors. “I also didn’t do my part as well. I didn’t throw as many strikes. It didn’t help them, so I think it was a combination of everything. There’s going to be days like that, but I guess I felt fine, did the best I could.”

The Rangers busted the game open an inning later, scoring five runs in the fifth inning and knocking Woods Richardson out. All of those runs came with two outs in the inning as the Rangers recorded five straight hits off Woods Richardson and reliever Justin Topa.

“He was battling through the outing. … As the outing went on, there were some baserunners,” Baldelli said. “They got on in different ways. There were a couple walks and they hit some balls hard. It just kind of piled up.”

Two more runs scored in the sixth inning off Justin Topa, and the Rangers rocked Jorge Alcala for six (five earned) in the eighth inning.

While every Ranger in the starting lineup finished with at least one hit, the bulk of the damage came from the bottom of the order with their six through nine hitters driving in 14 of their 16 runs. No. 6 hitter Evan Carter drove in three runs, Josh Jung another four, Adolis García two of them and Kyle Higashioka, batting at the bottom of the lineup, led the team with five runs batted in.

Though the Twins (35-31) collected 12 hits of their own, they would never recover after falling into the three-run deficit in the fourth inning. Ty France smacked a high fastball off the wall in right field to drive in the Twins’ first run of the game, and Royce Lewis added an RBI knock later in fourth.

The Twins scored once more in the fifth inning, and Matt Wallner hit his fourth home run since returning from the injured list on May 31 in the sixth inning for their final run of the day. All four of those runs came off former Twins starter Tyler Mahle, who threw 5 2/3 innings and picked up the win in his return to Target Field.

“They obviously swung the bats pretty good (Tuesday), gave them some tough at-bats, shot some balls the other way, stayed through some breaking (balls),” Baldelli said. “They did it in a number of different ways. But we can play better than what we showed out there … on all sides of the ball.”

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The St. Paul Public Schools board of education unanimously approved a $1 billion budget for the upcoming school year on Tuesday. An estimated $51.1 million budget shortfall is to be covered by $35.5 million in reserve funds and $15.6 million in budget cuts and new revenue under the budget.

Of the overall budget reductions, 74%, or $11.5 million, come from cuts in central office departments – 8% of the district’s total budget – including Schools and Learning, administration and operations and financial services, human resources and equity, strategy and innovation. Those departments will have cuts in staffing, contracts and vendor services, travel and supplies and service levels.

Feedback this year from the community and board members encouraged district officials to look toward central office administration when making reductions, said Jackie Turner, executive chief of administration and operations.

“And we heard that as, stay away from the schools as much as you can,” Turner said. “And I believe that the budget you see tonight does all of those things.”

Drawing from the district’s fund balance for the budget shortfall will maintain programs and services as much as possible, district officials said. They attribute the shortfall to state funding not keeping pace with inflation in the past 20 years and increased expenses. They also acknowledged that future adjustments may need to be made to the budget.

Referendum

During its May meeting, the board approved a resolution directing the district administration to prepare a November referendum recommendation for additional district revenue. Ballot language is expected to come before the board in July.

The results of that referendum and as well as changes to enrollment may necessitate future budget adjustments, according to district officials.

“But I do hope that folks in our community who had concerns about the budget and the way that we’re spending money, maybe there was something they cared about … that they will continue to speak to us if the concerns that they had bear out to be true,” board member Uriah Ward said.

Changes

While the board passed an approximately $1 billion budget last year — this year’s budget is around $8 million less — board members praised the increase in transparency this time around.

Key components of the budget are construction and debt service, said district budget chief Tom Sager. The district’s capital projects fund is $118.9 million.

Additional revenue will not only include the proposed referendum, but also potential reductions in the district’s facilities portfolio, said SPPS Superintendent Stacie Stanley.

Some changes to the approved budget since the board’s May meeting include $543,000 added from the general fund to reinstate some positions and programming in Early Childhood Family Education, or ECFE — a voluntary program for parents and their children below the age for kindergarten enrollment. Parents and community members in April had spoken against previously proposed cuts to the program. $60,000 was also added to the budget for student engagement support.

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