Trump requests to move "hush money" case to federal court

Former President Donald Trump asked a federal court late Thursday to intervene in his New York "hush money" criminal case, seeking a pathway to overturn his felony conviction and indefinitely delay his sentencing next month.

Lawyers for the current Republican nominee asked the federal court in Manhattan to seize the case from the state court where it was tried, arguing that the historic prosecution violated his constitutional rights and ran afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent presidential immunity ruling.

Trump's lawyers, who failed last year in a pretrial bid to get the case shifted to federal court, said moving it now will give him an "unbiased forum, free from local hostilities" to address those issues. In state court, they said, Trump has been the victim of "bias, conflicts of interest, and appearances of impropriety."