President Donald Trump speaks to members of the military aboard the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier docked at an American naval base, in Yokosuka. (AP)

President Donald Trump late Monday formally appealed his New York criminal conviction, arguing that the trial was “fatally marred,” that jurors considered evidence that should have been off-limits and that the judge made crucial mistakes.

With the 96-page appeal, filed in 1st Department of the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division at about 11:30 p.m., Trump began the legal effort to scrub away the stain of his 34 felony convictions. In spring 2024, a jury found him guilty of approving a scheme to falsify business records to conceal a hush-money payment made on his behalf during the 2016 election.

That payment, the last in a

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