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Challenge to New York City's Only Republican House Seat · Bloomberg Law

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
0:08
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has unleashed this unprecedented jerry mandering on the country.
0:14
Speaker 2: We've never seen anything like this.
0:16
Speaker 3: President Donald Trump's push for Republicans to redraw US House
0:21
Speaker 3: districts ahead of next year's midterm elections has triggered unprecedented
0:26
Speaker 3: mid decade gerrymandering, starting with the states of Texas, Missouri,
0:31
Speaker 3: and North Carolina, where Republicans have already drawn seven new
0:36
Speaker 3: GOP leaning House seats, but Democratic states, led by California,
0:41
Speaker 3: are fighting back or trying to because redistricting in many
0:47
Speaker 3: Blue states is hampered by independent redistricting commissions or state
0:52
Speaker 3: bans on mid decade redistricting. House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries
0:58
Speaker 3: went to Illinois this week to try to convince Democrats
1:01
Speaker 3: there to redraw their maps.
1:04
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and Republicans have decided that they were going
1:07
Speaker 2: to try to gerrymander congressional maps all across the country
1:11
Speaker 2: as part of their effort to rig the midterm elections
1:15
Speaker 2: and deny the American people the ability to decide who
1:20
Speaker 2: should hold the gavels. In the aftermath of the elections
1:25
Speaker 2: that will take place in November of twenty twenty six.
1:28
Speaker 2: Democrats have made clear that we are going to respond
1:32
Speaker 2: as is being done in California right now, appropriately, immediately,
1:39
Speaker 2: and forcefully.
1:41
Speaker 3: The latest salvo in the national gerrymandering battle comes from
1:46
Speaker 3: New York City. In a lawsuit by a group of
1:49
Speaker 3: New York voters against the New York State Board of
1:51
Speaker 3: Elections and top state officials. It claims that the congressional
1:56
Speaker 3: district held by New York City's only Republican represent native
2:01
Speaker 3: is impermissibly drawn to shut out black and Latino voters.
2:06
Speaker 3: My guest is Jeffrey Weiss, a professor at New York
2:09
Speaker 3: Law School who directs the school's New York Elections, Census
2:13
Speaker 3: and Redistricting Institute. Jeff tell us about this lawsuit that's
2:18
Speaker 3: challenging New York's eleventh congressional district.
2:22
Speaker 4: Well, we have a new lawsuit filed earlier this week
2:26
Speaker 4: by a group of New York voters who are arguing
2:29
Speaker 4: that the current congressional district that includes Staten Island and
2:35
Speaker 4: parts of Brooklyn di loots a minority voting strength, that
2:39
Speaker 4: the black and Hispanic voters' power is diminished by the
2:44
Speaker 4: way the district is drawn now, and that they would
2:47
Speaker 4: have a much more effective voice in the ability to
2:50
Speaker 4: elect a preferred candidate if parts of Manhattan were appended
2:55
Speaker 4: to the district instead of Brooklyn. That, in essence, is
2:58
Speaker 4: what the lawsuit is is looking for.
3:01
Speaker 3: Is this an unusual lawsuit.
3:03
Speaker 4: It's unusual in the sense that's being brought mid decade. Obviously,
3:08
Speaker 4: it's got political connotations that it would change the dynamic
3:12
Speaker 4: of who's running for re election in New York, that
3:15
Speaker 4: current Republican congress Member Nicole Meliotacus would find herself no
3:20
Speaker 4: longer in conservative white areas in Brooklyn, but rather parts
3:25
Speaker 4: of Lower Manhattan. That it would be a district where
3:28
Speaker 4: the Democrats are expected to do a lot better. It's
3:31
Speaker 4: also a district where Dan Goldman, who is the incumbent
3:35
Speaker 4: now in a district that includes Manhattan and Brooklyn, we
3:40
Speaker 4: probably find himself in better territory and also probably stave
3:45
Speaker 4: off a primary challenge within the Democratic Party from several
3:49
Speaker 4: Brooklyn elected officials who have indicated their intent to run
3:54
Speaker 4: against him in a primary.
3:56
Speaker 3: Is the Democratic Party behind this lawsuit?
3:58
Speaker 4: Well, the case is being brought by two law firms.
4:02
Speaker 4: The lead firm is the Elias Law Group based in Washington,
4:05
Speaker 4: d C. And that firm has been in existence for
4:08
Speaker 4: about a decade or less, but their work is primarily
4:11
Speaker 4: on behalf of Democrats and the National Democratic Party committees.
4:16
Speaker 4: There's also a New York law firm involved as Local
4:19
Speaker 4: Council and they've been involved with political campaign litigation for
4:24
Speaker 4: quite some time as well.
4:25
Speaker 3: Is this lawsuit different because it's based on the New
4:29
Speaker 3: York State Constitution so well test how protective the state
4:33
Speaker 3: constitution is of minority voting rights rather than the US Constitution.
4:41
Speaker 4: Well, this claim is based on the state constitutional protections
4:45
Speaker 4: that redistricting maps have to honor minority voting strain that
4:50
Speaker 4: you cannot dilute minority voters from their ability to elect
4:55
Speaker 4: preferred candidates, and the state constitution uses very similar language
5:00
Speaker 4: to the Federal Voting Rights Act, which happens to be
5:04
Speaker 4: subject to a challenge now from the Louisiana Congressional redistricting
5:09
Speaker 4: before the US Supreme Court. The validity the future of
5:13
Speaker 4: the Federal Voting Rights Act was heard in a case
5:16
Speaker 4: two weeks ago, and we expect any time from the
5:19
Speaker 4: end of this year, but more likely by the end
5:22
Speaker 4: of June, for the Supreme Court to hand down a
5:25
Speaker 4: decision where most of us think they're going to do
5:28
Speaker 4: something to change the dynamic of the Voting Rights Act,
5:31
Speaker 4: but not eliminated entirely. But that's reading the tea leaves
5:35
Speaker 4: too much.
5:37
Speaker 3: Well, your prediction there fits in with the predictions of
5:40
Speaker 3: other election law experts. So let's say the Supreme Court
5:45
Speaker 3: does change the Voting Rights Act in some way. Will
5:49
Speaker 3: that affect the New York Constitution?
5:52
Speaker 4: Well, it could affect the state Constitution to the extent
5:55
Speaker 4: of what the Supreme Court might limit. Right now. The
5:59
Speaker 4: gold stand in vote dilution is Section two of the
6:04
Speaker 4: Voting Rights Act, and the Supreme Court adopted a test
6:09
Speaker 4: in the mid nineteen eighties in a North Carolina case
6:12
Speaker 4: called Thornberg versus Jingles, where a challenging minority group has
6:18
Speaker 4: to demonstrate to a court that, if it claims it
6:21
Speaker 4: should have an effective minority district, you've got to have
6:25
Speaker 4: fifty percent or more of a district being comprised of
6:29
Speaker 4: a minority voters. Second, you have to show that the
6:32
Speaker 4: minority voters vote cohesively pretty much the same way for
6:36
Speaker 4: similar candidates. And third, most importantly, you've got to show
6:41
Speaker 4: that there is a high level of racially polarized voting,
6:45
Speaker 4: where white voters constantly outvote minority voters' abilities to elect
6:51
Speaker 4: preferred candidates in primaries or general elections. So if you
6:54
Speaker 4: meet those three prongs, size, cohesiveness, and polarized votvoting, then
7:00
Speaker 4: you have a Voting Rights Act violation situation. And the
7:04
Speaker 4: Supreme Court is now being asked whether that test is
7:08
Speaker 4: still a cojuent one to use now in the twenty
7:11
Speaker 4: first century.
7:13
Speaker 3: So, in this case, the black and Latino voters constitute
7:17
Speaker 3: nearly a quarter of the voting population in that congressional district.
7:24
Speaker 3: Is that enough? Then?
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Speaker 4: Well, what the plaintiffs are doing here. They're challenging the
7:29
Speaker 4: map based on the state constitution, but they're trying to
7:31
Speaker 4: incorperate the New York State Voting Rights Act, which was
7:35
Speaker 4: enacted by the legislature in twenty twenty two. The State
7:39
Speaker 4: Voting Rights Act does not apply to congressional districts, but
7:43
Speaker 4: it does lay out different kinds of criteria and standards
7:47
Speaker 4: that courts should look to when looking at vote dilution
7:52
Speaker 4: claims in counties, towns, cities, and villages. So they're saying
7:56
Speaker 4: that there is similar preamble language in vote the state
8:00
Speaker 4: constitution and the state Voting Rights Ack, that it makes
8:04
Speaker 4: a lot of sense to also incorporate the state statue
8:09
Speaker 4: standards into the state constitutional situation. And that will probably
8:15
Speaker 4: be one of the first arguments that I think intervening
8:18
Speaker 4: Republicans will make to dismiss this case is that the
8:21
Speaker 4: state voting rightsack doesn't apply. What the plaintiffs are doing
8:25
Speaker 4: here is using these state voting rights SACK criteria that
8:28
Speaker 4: unlike federal law, where you need to have a district
8:31
Speaker 4: of at least fifty percent plus minority voter population that
8:37
Speaker 4: you can combine let's say fifteen or twenty percent of
8:42
Speaker 4: combined voters let's say black and Hispanic, the federal voting
8:46
Speaker 4: right sack requires the fifty percent pretty much of one
8:49
Speaker 4: racial group, be the black or Hispanic oraasion. But the
8:53
Speaker 4: state law permits you to aggregate or put together smaller
8:57
Speaker 4: communities of let's say Black populations, And that, in essence
9:02
Speaker 4: is what they're looking to do by adding a part
9:06
Speaker 4: of Manhattan to the Staten Island based district. And I'll
9:11
Speaker 4: just mention also that the Hispanic population in Lower Manhattan
9:16
Speaker 4: is not adjacent to South ferry right at the foot
9:19
Speaker 4: of Manhattan Island by the New York Harbor. It's considerably
9:23
Speaker 4: north there, so you'd have to take Staten Island, take
9:27
Speaker 4: the Staten Island ferry over to Manhattan and drive up
9:31
Speaker 4: aways basically up to the Brooklyn Bridge, where you have
9:34
Speaker 4: an Hispanic population in the lower east side up to
9:38
Speaker 4: about fourteenth Street. And that raises the question of whether
9:41
Speaker 4: race is the predominant factor in creating this district, because
9:46
Speaker 4: that runs against what the Supreme Court has said about
9:49
Speaker 4: racial garry mandering, which is subject to strict scrutiny and
9:54
Speaker 4: has to be narrowly tailored to remedy specific problems. So
9:58
Speaker 4: the plaintiffstrict have to demonstrate to the court why a
10:02
Speaker 4: district that constitutes Staten Island and parts of over Manhattan
10:07
Speaker 4: makes sense, as if a lot.
10:09
Speaker 3: Of these new districts make sense. So Melia Takis said,
10:14
Speaker 3: it's a frivolous lawsuit trying to upend our congressional district.
10:18
Speaker 3: And she noted that the current map was approved by
10:21
Speaker 3: New York's Democratic controlled state legislature and democratic governor. Does
10:27
Speaker 3: she have the advantage here? In other words, is this
10:30
Speaker 3: an uphill battle for the Democrats.
10:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, the clock is ticking. The State Supreme Court only
10:36
Speaker 4: has two months to render a decision, which would take
10:40
Speaker 4: us to mid to late December. Petitioning for the twenty
10:44
Speaker 4: twenty sixth election cycle right now gets underway in late February,
10:48
Speaker 4: so that leaves very little time for New York's midle
10:52
Speaker 4: level appeals court, the Appellate Division, and then finally the
10:56
Speaker 4: State Court of Appeals and already to hear this case.
10:59
Speaker 4: And you can pretty much be sure that whoever objects
11:02
Speaker 4: to this case, and I'm anticipating Republican interveners will strenuously
11:07
Speaker 4: try to slow this case down and prevented from impacting
11:10
Speaker 4: the twenty twenty six elections.
11:13
Speaker 3: Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue
11:15
Speaker 3: this conversation with New York law professor Jeffrey Weiss. We'll
11:20
Speaker 3: take a look at the national redistricting picture. I'm June Grosso,
11:24
Speaker 3: and you're listening to Bloomberg.
11:28
Speaker 2: Democrats have made claire that we are going to respond
11:32
Speaker 2: as is being done in California right now, appropriately, immediately
11:39
Speaker 2: and forcefully to ensure that the national congressional map is
11:46
Speaker 2: as fair as it can possibly be.
11:49
Speaker 3: House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries was in Illinois this week
11:54
Speaker 3: to try to convince Democratic lawmakers there to redraw the
11:58
Speaker 3: state's maps. Comes as Democratic states, led by California, are
12:03
Speaker 3: fighting against President Trump's push for Republicans to redraw US
12:08
Speaker 3: House districts ahead of next year's midterm elections. But the
12:13
Speaker 3: latest salvo in the national gerrymanderin battle comes from New
12:17
Speaker 3: York City, in a lawsuit by a group of voters
12:20
Speaker 3: claiming that the congressional district held by New York City's
12:24
Speaker 3: only Republican representative is impermissibly drawn to shut out black
12:29
Speaker 3: and Latino voters. I've been talking to Jeffrey Weiss, a
12:33
Speaker 3: professor at New York Law School. Jeff, there was litigation
12:37
Speaker 3: around the New York map for years. Tell us how
12:41
Speaker 3: we got to this point.
12:43
Speaker 4: Well, I think by twenty twenty four you know, after
12:45
Speaker 4: a failed process in twenty twenty two where a state
12:48
Speaker 4: commission that was approved by the voters twenty fourteen basically
12:53
Speaker 4: imploded and subject to a court order, went back to
12:56
Speaker 4: work and finished the job by January twenty twenty five.
13:00
Speaker 4: For the legislature wanted to end this process, have a
13:03
Speaker 4: new map for twenty twenty four actually a bipartisan map
13:07
Speaker 4: with Republican support. So the map that was agreed to took
13:12
Speaker 4: some strenuous effort early last year, and the case that's
13:16
Speaker 4: been brought now you can consider somewhat Democrats challenging democrats.
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Speaker 3: I mean, is there any other effort underway in New
13:24
Speaker 3: York State to redistrict.
13:27
Speaker 4: Well, there is another approach. Earlier in the summer, the
13:31
Speaker 4: Senate Deputy majority Leader and a member of the Assembly
13:34
Speaker 4: introduced a resolution in the legislature that would permit New
13:39
Speaker 4: York to rejow the district lines mid decade if and
13:44
Speaker 4: only after any other state does the same thing in
13:48
Speaker 4: mid decades. So since Texas already went ahead and mid
13:52
Speaker 4: decade redistricted, this amendment would let New York also redistrict
13:57
Speaker 4: mid decade. The state constitution right now prohibit that. But
14:01
Speaker 4: the barrier to that is that, since the state constitution
14:04
Speaker 4: now currently does bar mid decade redistricting, you have to
14:08
Speaker 4: change the constitution, and to do that you need to
14:11
Speaker 4: have an amendment go through two separately elected legislatures. So
14:16
Speaker 4: the plan now is to pass something, whether it's the
14:20
Speaker 4: amendment that was introduced earlier this summer or possibly a
14:24
Speaker 4: more expansive amendment, but to do that next year and
14:28
Speaker 4: then pass it again with the new legislature in twenty
14:31
Speaker 4: twenty seven, so that the voters can then approve the
14:34
Speaker 4: question and then enable the legislature to redraw a new
14:38
Speaker 4: map for twenty twenty eight. This is similar to the
14:41
Speaker 4: process that's getting underway this week in Virginia. The New
14:44
Speaker 4: York situation is complicated in that we've got politics, personalities,
14:50
Speaker 4: competing lawsuits, and the calendar all running against each other
14:54
Speaker 4: at the same time.
14:56
Speaker 3: How many seats has Trump already gotten through.
14:59
Speaker 4: The rediscd well, I mean, the ballpark claims are that
15:03
Speaker 4: there are five Democrats who were targeted in Texas, that
15:07
Speaker 4: there was one Democrat targeted in Missouri, that there are
15:11
Speaker 4: up to two Democrats targeted in Indiana, there is one
15:15
Speaker 4: Democrat in Kansas, so that you know, they're really fighting
15:19
Speaker 4: a state by state trench warfare, picking off one district
15:23
Speaker 4: here or one district there. So it's really getting down
15:27
Speaker 4: to a micro targeting that when you have a two
15:30
Speaker 4: three four seat Republican majority that you're trying to overcome,
15:35
Speaker 4: every single seat matters. In California, you've got another situation
15:40
Speaker 4: where Democrats can possibly pick up five districts by weakening
15:45
Speaker 4: or eliminating districts of five current Republicans, but that has
15:49
Speaker 4: to go through two votes by the republic this year.
15:52
Speaker 4: One is to amend the state constitution to get around
15:56
Speaker 4: the state's own ban on mid decade districting and using
16:00
Speaker 4: a commission to join the maps. Then secondly requesting the
16:04
Speaker 4: voters actually approve a map that the legislature itself voted
16:08
Speaker 4: on over the summer.
16:10
Speaker 3: Is the redistricting done in Texas? Is it being challenged?
16:15
Speaker 4: There are court cases challenging the Texas maps. There were
16:19
Speaker 4: challenges filed almost the next day, but they may.
16:22
Speaker 3: Not settle out before the election.
16:24
Speaker 4: Texas and North Carolina have been in court over redistricting
16:28
Speaker 4: for almost thirty years, consistently, always in court over this.
16:32
Speaker 4: It's not one map, it's another.
16:34
Speaker 3: Got to be a better way. So you mentioned Virginia.
16:37
Speaker 3: What's happening in Virginia.
16:39
Speaker 4: Well, in Virginia the Democrats control of the state legislature
16:43
Speaker 4: with a Republican governor. But what's happening there is that Virginia,
16:48
Speaker 4: like New York and like California, have bans on mid
16:52
Speaker 4: decade redistricting. So Virginia is beginning today to consider a
16:57
Speaker 4: state constitutional amendment to do the same thing I talked
17:01
Speaker 4: about in New York, to allow the legislature itself to
17:04
Speaker 4: draw a new map, subjects to approval by the voters.
17:08
Speaker 4: That amendment also has to go through two separately elected legislatures,
17:12
Speaker 4: so that you know, it's going to take at least
17:14
Speaker 4: two years or three years in Virginia to do the
17:17
Speaker 4: same thing that Democrats are trying to do in New York.
17:20
Speaker 3: So that's not going to help the midterms what happens
17:23
Speaker 3: in Virginia.
17:24
Speaker 4: That's why the lawsuit that was filed earlier this week,
17:27
Speaker 4: you know, it was aimed to impact the twenty twenty
17:30
Speaker 4: six elections, but there's no guarantee if the case survives
17:34
Speaker 4: through all of the trial levels, that will get resolved
17:37
Speaker 4: before the twenty twenty six elections, and you know, may
17:40
Speaker 4: stretch towards twenty twenty eight. But you know, it looks
17:43
Speaker 4: now as if this battle isn't going to end until
17:46
Speaker 4: twenty thirty.
17:47
Speaker 3: Why is it that the Blue states have all these
17:51
Speaker 3: restrictions like no mid decade redistricting, and the red states
17:56
Speaker 3: don't seem to have it.
17:57
Speaker 4: Well, two reasons. First is that there simply are more
18:01
Speaker 4: states under Republican control than democratic and the second is
18:06
Speaker 4: that a number of states passed new laws in the
18:08
Speaker 4: last ten twenty years to create a more independent, transparent,
18:13
Speaker 4: and open, voter involved redistricting process through commissions New York, California, Michigan, Colorado, Virginia,
18:24
Speaker 4: just to name a few. The Republican states where we've
18:27
Speaker 4: seen mid decade district things such as Texas, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas,
18:33
Speaker 4: they don't have commissions or processes like the Blue states have.
18:38
Speaker 4: And Democrats are now realizing that some of the reforms
18:42
Speaker 4: they enacted over the years to make redistricting more transparent
18:46
Speaker 4: haven't worked the way they should have, especially when you've
18:49
Speaker 4: got a president who is looking at his victories and
18:52
Speaker 4: states is a mandate to control their congressional delegations and
18:55
Speaker 4: demand that the delegations represent his victory last year. This
19:01
Speaker 4: is unprecedented in American history for presidents to get involved
19:05
Speaker 4: in this minute power picking grab.
19:07
Speaker 3: I use the word unprecedented nearly every day in this show.
19:11
Speaker 3: So you have, you know, Republicans pushing, and then you
19:15
Speaker 3: have like Democrats. The leader of the Maryland Senate is
19:18
Speaker 3: rejecting the effort to redistrict there.
19:22
Speaker 4: Well, you know, you also have Republicans in the Indiana
19:25
Speaker 4: Senate pushing back. So in some states you've got Democrats
19:30
Speaker 4: who are fighting back. In states you've got Republicans who
19:33
Speaker 4: want to do what Donald Trump tells them to do
19:37
Speaker 4: and believe this is in his best interest. And then
19:39
Speaker 4: you have some Democrats and Republicans to are other states
19:42
Speaker 4: who just say this is going too far, this is
19:45
Speaker 4: not what we were elected to do, and we're not
19:47
Speaker 4: going to go along with this.
19:49
Speaker 3: Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries went to Illinois to try to
19:54
Speaker 3: convince them there to redistrict.
19:58
Speaker 4: Well, that's a state where democrats too can all the
20:00
Speaker 4: governorship in both chambers of the legislature. But the map
20:03
Speaker 4: that they enacted there after the twenty twenty census arguably
20:08
Speaker 4: max is out democratic strength that you really can't draw
20:12
Speaker 4: more democratic districts. But I don't think the ballgame is
20:16
Speaker 4: over there yet. We have to wait and see, Yeah,
20:18
Speaker 4: because you.
20:19
Speaker 3: Think that you can't do it until they find some
20:22
Speaker 3: strange way of.
20:23
Speaker 4: Doing it, Like in Texas. In twenty nineteen, the US
20:26
Speaker 4: Supreme Court held in a case called Route Show versus
20:29
Speaker 4: common cause, that federal courts are not the place to
20:33
Speaker 4: bring partisan garry mandering redistricting allegations, that there's no judicially
20:40
Speaker 4: manageable standard by which to determine how much is too much,
20:45
Speaker 4: and that it's best left to the states or Congress
20:47
Speaker 4: to deal with it. So you've got states now. In particular,
20:51
Speaker 4: we've seen the North Carolina and Pennsylvania state courts reject
20:55
Speaker 4: partisan gerry manders, and ironically, in North Carolina, the state
21:00
Speaker 4: Supreme Court went from a Democratic court to a Republican court.
21:04
Speaker 4: They flipped there and now said that redistricting is perrymandering,
21:08
Speaker 4: you know, is permissible in that state. So a lot
21:11
Speaker 4: of this is determined, sadly by politics, not by law
21:15
Speaker 4: or precedent. The North Carolina Supreme Court just did a
21:18
Speaker 4: total flip on rejecting a congressional map and now accepting
21:22
Speaker 4: it all in the last several years.
21:25
Speaker 3: Is Colorado coming into the picture as well?
21:28
Speaker 4: Colorado also has a commission in Bars on bid decay districting,
21:33
Speaker 4: and I just haven't seen any action in Colorado yet,
21:37
Speaker 4: But I think with national pressure on states one by one,
21:40
Speaker 4: we just have to wait and see what happens. As
21:42
Speaker 4: twenty twenty six approaches after.
21:45
Speaker 3: The midterms, what are these, you know, states going to
21:48
Speaker 3: look like. It's going to be all Republican states and
21:50
Speaker 3: all Democratic states.
21:52
Speaker 4: It seems, and that's why I think this will continue
21:54
Speaker 4: till twenty thirty. Twenty twenty eight. Then we have twenty
21:58
Speaker 4: thirty ahead of us, where the White House is already
22:01
Speaker 4: trying to manipulate the way the census is conducted to
22:05
Speaker 4: base the numbers on citizens and not on the whole
22:09
Speaker 4: number of persons as the Constitution requires. So this is
22:13
Speaker 4: a multifaceted battle.
22:15
Speaker 3: We'll find out more about the situation in California after
22:20
Speaker 3: election day. Voting concludes on Proposition fifty, which would create
22:26
Speaker 3: parties in US House maps outside of normal once a
22:30
Speaker 3: decade redistricting handled by an independent commission. Jeff thanks so
22:37
Speaker 3: much for bringing to light all the different concerns and
22:40
Speaker 3: permutations with redistricting. That's Professor Jeffrey Weiss of New York
22:46
Speaker 3: Law School. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show,
22:49
Speaker 3: We'll tell you what's in Donald Trump's appeal of his
22:52
Speaker 3: New York hush money conviction. I'm June Grosso and you're
22:56
Speaker 3: listening to Bloomberg. President Donald Trump formally appealed his conviction
23:04
Speaker 3: in New York state so called hush money case this week,
23:09
Speaker 3: arguing that the verdict was the result of a flawed
23:12
Speaker 3: trial and a politically charged prosecution that sought to derail
23:16
Speaker 3: his twenty twenty four presidential campaign. Trump's attorney said the
23:21
Speaker 3: felony charges by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in April
23:26
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty three were manufactured under a convoluted legal theory.
23:31
Speaker 3: A jury of twelve New Yorkers found Trump guilty of
23:35
Speaker 3: thirty four counts of falsifying business records to conceal a
23:39
Speaker 3: hush money payment to a porn star on the eve
23:42
Speaker 3: of the twenty sixteen election. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal
23:46
Speaker 3: reporter Eric Larson. Eric, before we get to the appeal,
23:50
Speaker 3: just remind us about the trial itself, right.
23:55
Speaker 1: So, this was the so called hush money case that
23:58
Speaker 1: was brought against Trump in twenty twenty three by the
24:01
Speaker 1: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bradd. It accused him of falsifying
24:07
Speaker 1: business records dozens of times to essentially conceal a payment
24:13
Speaker 1: that was made to a porn star before the twenty
24:16
Speaker 1: sixteen election in order to keep her quiet and keep
24:20
Speaker 1: voters in the darkabouts that alleged conduct, and at a trial,
24:26
Speaker 1: a jury of New Yorkers found Trump guilty on all
24:30
Speaker 1: thirty four counts last year, that was just about six
24:34
Speaker 1: months or so before the election.
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Speaker 3: There are several grounds in the appeal. Let's start with
24:40
Speaker 3: the claim that the charges were manufactured under a convoluted
24:45
Speaker 3: legal theory.
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Speaker 1: Right, So this is one of the arguments that Trump's
24:49
Speaker 1: lawyers sort of that had been making all along, which
24:51
Speaker 1: is that they didn't think that the alleged conducts well.
24:55
Speaker 1: First of all, that they denied any at has been broken,
24:58
Speaker 1: but they argued that the the business record violations were
25:04
Speaker 1: just misdemeanors under New York law, and that the district
25:08
Speaker 1: attorney had gone out of his way to sort of
25:12
Speaker 1: create a felony by stacking all these these violations in
25:17
Speaker 1: a way that then tied them to the furtherance of
25:21
Speaker 1: violating another law, an election law. So they argue that
25:25
Speaker 1: that sort of, you know, transformation of misdemeanors into a
25:28
Speaker 1: felony through that legal theory was never done before that
25:32
Speaker 1: they were really stretching their arguments to try to find
25:34
Speaker 1: a way to make it a felony, And according to
25:36
Speaker 1: this appeal brief that they filed this week, you know,
25:39
Speaker 1: they said that all along the District Attorney's office had
25:44
Speaker 1: struggled to find a case and initially couldn't build one
25:48
Speaker 1: that was a felony, and that they really sort of,
25:50
Speaker 1: you know, worked their way backwards to try to create
25:54
Speaker 1: a felony case. According to to Trump's lawyers.
25:57
Speaker 3: Well, another argument, which is about did you we are
26:00
Speaker 3: hearing improper evidence uses a new term, I think presidential
26:04
Speaker 3: evidentiary immunity. Right, I've never heard it before.
26:09
Speaker 1: Well, that's because they're attributing that to the Supreme Court
26:13
Speaker 1: ruling that had come out regarding presidential immunity. We all
26:16
Speaker 1: remember this big ruling that said that presidents are immune
26:21
Speaker 1: from criminal charges are related to conduct in office. So
26:27
Speaker 1: they pointed to that president and said that because Trump
26:32
Speaker 1: has immunity from official acts in office, that all of
26:36
Speaker 1: his conduct around that is evidence that also can't be
26:40
Speaker 1: used against him in court. So they argue that the
26:44
Speaker 1: jury improperly heard as evidence in the hush money case
26:48
Speaker 1: about some things he did while he was in office,
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Speaker 1: which he argues were official presidential acts related to how
26:55
Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen, he responded to the porn star's
27:00
Speaker 1: allegations Doormy Daniels and denied those allegations and rather how
27:05
Speaker 1: he worked with his lawyer at one of his lawyers
27:07
Speaker 1: at the time, Michael Cohen, who went on to be
27:08
Speaker 1: one of the witnesses against him. So basically, Trump argues
27:13
Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff going on while he
27:15
Speaker 1: was president and that the jury should not have heard
27:17
Speaker 1: about it.
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Speaker 3: He also, and we heard this over and over during
27:21
Speaker 3: the case about the judge, him complaining about the judge
27:25
Speaker 3: that the judge should have recused himself from the case.
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Speaker 1: Right right. Trump did not hide his feelings about this judge.
27:34
Speaker 1: He really thought that the judge was biased, made that
27:37
Speaker 1: allegation plenty of times all along, and of course pointed
27:40
Speaker 1: to the judge allegedly making donations Democrats and to an
27:46
Speaker 1: anti GOP pack also that his daughter works for an
27:52
Speaker 1: advertising firm that did business with Kamala Harris's campaign. So
27:57
Speaker 1: because of these ties and these nations, Trump argued that
28:02
Speaker 1: the judge could not be fair. And that argument also,
28:06
Speaker 1: of course was made before trial and during trial, and
28:09
Speaker 1: was repeatedly rejected. The judge, pointing to the strength of
28:13
Speaker 1: the evidence and things like that to illustrate that his
28:18
Speaker 1: arguments or his decisions and opinions were based on the
28:21
Speaker 1: facts and not on any of his own opinions. So
28:24
Speaker 1: again that was rejected repeatedly. But now we'll see what
28:27
Speaker 1: an appeals court things.
28:29
Speaker 3: So this is state court. He's also appealing in federal court, right.
28:35
Speaker 1: So you might recall that there were some appeal filings
28:39
Speaker 1: in regards to this verdict in federal court because Trump
28:44
Speaker 1: had tried to move the case to federal court all along,
28:47
Speaker 1: and tried to do so again after the verdict because
28:50
Speaker 1: he argues that it never should have been in state
28:52
Speaker 1: court because of the different federal questions that were raised.
28:56
Speaker 1: That was repeatedly rejected by a federal judge in Manhattan,
28:59
Speaker 1: by the way, but he has asked the Second Circuit
29:03
Speaker 1: Appeals Court in Manhattan to revisit this issue. That was
29:07
Speaker 1: an appeal track that was started earlier. So that clearly
29:10
Speaker 1: Trump's defense team is prioritizing that that's appeal route, which
29:15
Speaker 1: would get him faster to the Supreme Court as well.
29:18
Speaker 1: So he's he's got a two track appeal going here.
29:21
Speaker 4: Now.
29:22
Speaker 3: Trump was successful in appealing the civil fraud conviction in
29:28
Speaker 3: the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
29:33
Speaker 1: Right, you know, he he did get a big win
29:35
Speaker 1: there the president when that that massive nearly half billion
29:38
Speaker 1: dollar penalty was overturned in then in New York States
29:42
Speaker 1: civil fraud case. But courts that appeals court decision also
29:47
Speaker 1: left and taxed the liability finding that Trump and his
29:51
Speaker 1: company and his two adult sons had engaged in fraud.
29:55
Speaker 1: So both sides of that case have appealed. We don't
29:59
Speaker 1: know exactly how long that is going to take to
30:02
Speaker 1: work its way through the courts. That they've appelled it
30:05
Speaker 1: to New York State's highest court, so it's already a
30:07
Speaker 1: little further along than this criminal case.
30:09
Speaker 3: But now he hasn't been as successful against Egene Carroll.
30:15
Speaker 4: Right.
30:15
Speaker 1: He appealed the verdict in two cases that Egen Carroll filed.
30:21
Speaker 1: She won both. One was the defamation case with an
30:25
Speaker 1: eighty three million dollar penalty. The other was a defamation
30:27
Speaker 1: and sexual abuse lawsuits file in her New York state
30:31
Speaker 1: law with a five million dollar penalty. He appealed both
30:35
Speaker 1: of those to the federal appeals court, and those verdicts
30:38
Speaker 1: were both upheld.
30:40
Speaker 3: These cases all seem like they happened a lifetime ago.
30:44
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Eric. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Eric Larson,
30:49
Speaker 3: and that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
30:52
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