The president’s personal lawyers appeared before a federal appeals court Wednesday, urging a three-judge panel to transfer his state criminal case to federal court. Such a move would pave the way for him to eventually ask the Supreme Court to erase his criminal record by throwing out his conviction on presidential immunity grounds.

A federal appeals court in New York wrangled Wednesday with President Donald Trump’s claim that his hush money conviction should be reviewed by federal courts and seemed open to the idea that the Supreme Court’s landmark immunity decision may weigh in the president’s favor.

The president’s lawyers argued that a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity justified moving an appeal of his conviction in Manhattan to U.S. jurisdiction.