Judge's 'sloppiness' may have given Trump the 'opening' he needs in court: legal analyst

New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg penned a new letter to Judge Juan Merchan on Wednesday after Donald Trump was denied his demand to take his hush money case to federal court.

Late on Tuesday, Senior Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the U.S. Southern District of New York (SDNY) ruled against Trump's request to take the case from local New York court to federal.

Trump wasn't president when he engaged in a hush-money scheme to silence women with whom he had affairs, and thus his case does not need to be moved to a federal court.

Read Also: Hush money isn't a crime. Slush money is

Bragg wrote that the result means that there is no barrier to the Sept. 18 sentencing after a jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts.

The letter was "sent to Merchan yesterday after Judge Hellerstein's order but before Trump filed a notice of appeal of that order. It's still true that there is no pending removal notice, as Hellerstein denied Trump leave to file a second, belated notice," MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin commented.

Trump has appealed the Hellerstein decision, but Bragg's letter was sent to Merchan before that, explained former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance on X.

Rubin warned, "But Hellerstein's order conflates summary remand, which is appealable as of right, with the denial of leave, which is not. And that sloppiness might be just the opening Team Trump needs to be able to keep the removal effort going, at least for now."