Trump files ‘powerhouse’ appeal in ‘politically charged’ Manhattan district attorney case

President Donald Trump’s legal team filed a ‘powerhouse’ appeal in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against him, demanding the verdict be thrown out and that the ‘most politically charged prosecution in our Nation’s history,’ as they called it, be dismissed altogether.

Fox News Digital obtained the 111-page appeal filed in New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division late Monday night.

Sullivan & Cromwell’s Robert J. Giuffra Jr. is representing the president in the matter.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree but was found guilty in May after a six-week unprecedented criminal trial in New York in 2025.  

New York v. Trump is on a halt until 2029.

‘President Trump’s legal team filed a powerhouse appeal in the Manhattan DA’s Witch Hunt, as the President continues his fight to put an end to the Radical Democrat Lawfare once and for all,’ a spokesman for the president’s legal team told Fox News Digital.

‘The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately overturned and dismissed,’ the Trump spokesman continued.

‘President Trump will keep defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn as he focused on his singular mission to Make America Great Again.’

The 111-page filing details Giuffra’s argument for complete dismissal and reversal. 

‘This is the most politically charged prosecution in our Nation’s history,’ the filing states. ‘After years of fruitless investigation into decade-old, baseless allegations — and under immense political pressure to criminally charge President Donald J. Trump for something—New York’s district attorney (DANY) manufactured felony charges against a once-former and now-sitting President of the United States. The DA, a Democrat, brought those charges in the middle of a contentious Presidential election in which President Trump was the leading Republican candidate.’

Trump’s legal team called the charges against Trump ‘as unprecedented as their political context.’

‘Targeting alleged conduct that has never been found to violate any New York law, the DA concocted a purported felony by stacking time-barred misdemeanors under a convoluted legal theory, which the DA then improperly obscured until the charge conference,’ the filing states. ‘This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction.’

Trump’s lawyers are asking the court to ‘now reverse.’

‘Federal law expressly preempts DANY’s misdemeanor-turned-felony charges because those charges rest on an alleged violation of federal campaign regulations that States cannot (and have never) enforced,’ the filing states. ‘The trial was fatally marred by the introduction of 2 official Presidential acts that the Supreme Court has made clear cannot be used as evidence against a President.’

Trump’s lawyers went on to argue that ‘the jury was instructed incorrectly, allowing a conviction without the unanimity required by both New York law and basic due process.’

‘Beyond these fatal flaws, the evidence was clearly insufficient to convict,’ the filing states. ‘In addition to all this overwhelming error, the trial was conducted by a judge who refused to recuse himself despite having made political contributions to President Trump’s electoral opponents and despite having disqualifying family conflicts. For each of these independent reasons, President Trump’s conviction must be set aside.’ 

Trump’s attorneys also noted that the review of the by federal prosecutors in 2021 led to ‘no actions against President Trump even after he left office in 2021,’ which ‘should have barred any prosecution’ in the Manhattan district attorney’s efforts.

Trump attorneys also argued that the trial court violated the presidential evidentiary immunity confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which bars the ‘use of evidence about’ a president’s official acts while in office.

‘The jury improperly heard extensive testimony about at least four different kinds of official acts by President Trump,’ the filing states, including discussions between the president and the White House communications director in the Oval Office over the White House’s response to allegations of presidential wrongdoing; official presidential statements on social media; alleged discussions between the president and the attorney general about the enforcement of federal campaign regulations; and the president’s practices in discharging his presidential duties, including from the Situation Room.

‘The U.S. Supreme Court mandated that violations of Presidential evidentiary immunity require automatic reversal of a conviction without any harmless-error analysis,’ the filing states. ‘Even if such analysis were applied, the introduction of the prohibited testimony—which DANY repeatedly relied on and called ‘devastating’ in its summation, A7815—was far from harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.’

Trump attorneys also argued that the trial court ‘erred in instructing the jury that it could convict President Trump of having conspired to ‘promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means,’ Election Law § 17-152, without unanimously agreeing on what those ‘unlawful means’ actually were.’

‘Instead, the court permitted the jury to convict if some jurors believed only that President Trump had conspired to violate FECA, while others believed only that he had conspired to help others commit tax fraud, and still others believed only that he had conspired to help others make false statements to a 5 bank. Due process and Section 17-152 do not permit a conviction based on such a haphazard ‘combination of jury findings,’’ the filing states.

Trump lawyers also said the district attorney ‘had no proof that President Trump ever had the ‘intent to defraud’ expressly required by the business-records statute.’

‘There was zero evidence that President Trump intended to deprive anyone of money or property, and in fact no such deprivation occurred,’ the filing states. ‘Having no other choice, DANY advanced the flawed theory, erroneously blessed by the trial court, that ‘intent to defraud’ can include either (i) intent to interfere with unspecified government regulators, or (ii) intent to deceive ‘the voting public.’ Making matters worse, DANY did not prove that President Trump acted with either of those intentions in mind.’ 

The lawyers also argued that Judge Juan Merchan refused to recuse himself from the case, and questioned his impartiality due to his past political contributions — donating to both then-President Joe Biden and to a group called ‘Stop Republicans PAC.’

The lawyers also called into question, again, Merchan’s daughter’s work as the president and part-owner of an advertising company that was paid millions by the Kamala Harris campaign and other Democrats — ‘including for running advertisements specifically invoking DANY’s prosecution of President Trump in her father’s courtroom.’

Loren Merchan sits as the president for Authentic Campaigns — a company that has done political work for top Democrat clients like Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris. 

‘In the face of all these undisputed and damaging facts, Justice Merchan’s refusal to recuse created, at the very least, ‘the appearance of bias,’ which ‘erode(s) public confidence in the judicial system’ and is yet another clear ground for reversal,’ Trump lawyers argued.

Trump’s attorneys concluded by saying that ‘despite years of rifling through President Trump’s business, DANY could not find a felony charge.’

‘So it concocted an elaborate theory that has never before been pursued in this State and is plainly preempted by federal law,’ the filing states. ‘Like every criminal defendant in a New York courtroom, President Trump was entitled to a fair trial before a properly instructed jury and a neutral judge.’

‘Instead, he was convicted after a trial that featured repeated and clear violations of his constitutional rights, federal law, and New York law, presided over by a judge who was required to recuse,’ they argued. ‘For all these reasons, this Court should reverse the judgment of conviction and dismiss the indictment.’