WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday denied President-elect Donald Trump’s eleventh-hour attempt to stop his sentencing in his New York hush money trial from going forward Friday morning.
Trump appealed to the court’s emergency docket late Tuesday to intervene in his forthcoming sentencing for 34 felony convictions, arguing that presidential immunity should protect him in the days before he takes the oath of office, and, as he has in the past, that evidence introduced at trial violated the immunity doctrine.
The court denied Trump’s request, in part, because his concerns over evidence introduced in state trial court can be dealt with on a state-level appeal, and because the burden the sentencing will place on him as a president-elect amounts to “a brief virtual hearing,” according to an unsigned order entered on the docket Thursday evening.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh “would grant the application,” according to the order.
Trump spoke by phone with Alito just hours before Trump submitted his request to the court, ABC News first reported early Thursday. Alito told the network the two spoke about a different topic.
New York Justice Juan Merchan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for 10 a.m. Friday, making clear that he would not seek jail time or fines for the president-elect. Rather, Trump will receive an “unconditional discharge,” meaning he’ll retain a criminal record in New York but face no other punishment. Merchan also agreed to give Trump the option for a virtual sentencing.
Immunity ruling
A jury convicted Trump in May after a weeks-long trial focusing on his bookkeeping maneuvers to hide a $130,000 payment made by his personal lawyer ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence a porn star about a past sexual encounter. The conviction cemented Trump’s place in history as the first American president to become a convicted felon.
Trump fought the conviction after a Supreme Court ruling last summer that former presidents enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for official duties, and presumptive immunity for duties on the outer limits of the office.
Merchan last month denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the case based on presidential immunity, writing that the evidence introduced was “related entirely to unofficial conduct entitled to no immunity protection.”
Manhattan DA slams Trump’s request
In his response to Trump’s request to the Supreme Court, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued the high court lacks jurisdiction because Trump has not exhausted his appeals at the state level. Jurisdiction aside, he argued, neither of Trump’s claims “comes close to justifying a stay of the forthcoming sentencing.”
In the application to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, Trump’s lawyers argued that New York state committed a “grave error” in holding that a president-elect is not protected by immunity.
Bragg called this argument “extraordinary” and “unsupported by any decision from any court.”
“It is axiomatic that there is only one President at a time. Non-employees of the government do not exercise any official function that would be impaired by the conclusion of a criminal case against a private citizen for private conduct,” Bragg wrote.
He also wrote that the trial court has taken “extraordinary steps to minimize any burdens” on Trump. Bragg wrote that Trump “has provided no record support for his claim that his duties as President-elect foreclose him from virtually attending a sentencing that will likely take no more than an hour.”
“The current schedule is also entirely a function of defendant’s repeated requests to adjourn a sentencing date that was originally set for July 11, 2024,” Bragg wrote.
Trump’s lawyers rebutted Bragg in a reply Thursday, saying that the Manhattan district attorney “downplays the importance of the Presidential transition and the need for an energetic executive.”
Trump reaction
In a post on his online platform Truth Social Thursday night, Trump criticized Merchan as “highly political and corrupt” and said he plans to continue to fight the conviction.
“For the sake and sanctity of the Presidency, I will be appealing this case, and am confident that JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL. The pathetic, dying remnants of the Witch Hunts against me will not distract us as we unite and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!,” he wrote.
Last updated 6:53 p.m., Jan. 9, 2025
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