New York’s highest court on Thursday denied President-elect Donald Trump’s bid to postpone sentencing in the hush money case, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as his final option to delay Friday’s scheduled hearing.
Trump had appealed to both the Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals to block state Judge Juan Merchan from imposing a sentence after his May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
In a brief two-sentence response, the New York Court of Appeals informed Trump’s attorneys on Thursday that Judge Jenny Rivera had denied his request.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to rule on Trump’s last-minute appeal, filed Wednesday after a New York appellate court also rejected his request to stay the sentencing. The Supreme Court could act at any time on the matter.
In a Thursday filing, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg urged the Supreme Court to deny Trump’s request, arguing that the immunity protections granted to Trump in July for official presidential actions do not apply to this case, which involves conduct from 2016.
“Trump’s extraordinary immunity claim is unsupported by any decision from any court,” Bragg wrote. “It is axiomatic that there is only one president at a time. … And as this court has repeatedly recognized, presidential immunity is strictly limited to the president’s term in office.”
Should the sentencing proceed as scheduled, Judge Merchan has already indicated that no punishment will be imposed. Nonetheless, sentencing a former – and soon-to-be sitting – president marks an unprecedented moment in U.S. history.
Trump, who is expected to attend the sentencing virtually, is set to be sworn in as president in less than two weeks. His legal team’s repeated attempts to delay the proceedings underscore his determination to fight the felony conviction, even as other legal challenges have faded following his November election victory.
The charges stem from payments made to Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, reimbursing a $130,000 hush money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to silence claims of an alleged affair before the 2016 election. Trump, who has denied the affair, was convicted in May of falsifying business records in relation to the payments.
Trump’s lawyers had sought to overturn the conviction, citing the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity and his status as president-elect. However, Judge Merchan rejected the arguments, upholding the conviction but affirming that no jail time or other penalties would be imposed during sentencing.
