By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. government said President Donald Trump’s hush money criminal conviction in New York should be thrown out, because it was based on improper evidence and a legal theory preempted by federal law.

In a Friday filing with a state appeals court in Manhattan, the Department of Justice adopted Trump’s view that he deserved immunity for official acts he took as president, and introducing evidence of such acts at trial “can never be harmless.”

It also said federal law barred jurors from considering whether Trump violated federal election law by concealing a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, the disclosure of which could have disrupted his 2016 presidential campaign.

The Justice Department made its arguments in a friend-of-the-court b

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