The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump’s last-minute attempt to stay Friday’s sentencing in his hush money criminal case.
The president-elect called on the highest court to consider whether he is entitled to an automatic stay of sentencing, but the justices rejected the request 5-4.
Trump was found guilty of falsifying records to conceal fees for paying adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in secret money in legal fees in 2016.
Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case, indicated in a recent ruling that he would not consider jail time for Trump.
Three lower New York courts rejected Trump’s bid for a delay before the Supreme Court made a final decision Thursday night to let the sentencing go as planned.
The justices denied Trump’s request because they believed his concerns could be resolved on appeal.
They also wrote that the burden of attending the sentencing was “negligible.”
Trump’s lawyers also asked the Supreme Court to consider whether presidents-elect have immunity from prosecution.
Prosecutors in Manhattan urged the Supreme Court to reject Trump’s request, arguing that there is a “compelling public interest” in upholding the ruling and that “there is no basis for such intervention.”
After the jury’s guilty verdict in May 2024, Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced in July, but his lawyers successfully persuaded Justice Merchan to delay sentencing on three separate occasions.
Last week, Judge Merchan announced that sentencing would resume on January 10, just days before Trump is sworn in as president.
Days after that, Trump’s lawyers filed a series of appeals and court filings, trying to delay the verdict.
But in quick succession, New York appeals courts rejected the bids.
Finally on Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
The court should stop the proceedings “to prevent grave injustice and damage to the institution of the Presidency and the work of the federal government,” they wrote.
A 6-3 conservative majority handed Trump a major victory last year, when they ruled that US presidents are immune from prosecution for “official acts” taken in office.
The decision killed a federal prosecution against Trump on charges that he illegally interfered in the outcome of the 2020 election, which he has denied and pleaded not guilty to.
But since his re-election, Trump’s lawyers have tried to convince a series of judges that the protections of presidential immunity should also apply to the president-elect in this Manhattan criminal case.
Manhattan prosecutors argued in their filing to the Supreme Court that Trump’s “extraordinary immunity claim is not supported by any decision of any court.”
“It is an axiom that there is only one president at any given time,” prosecutors wrote.
Separately, a group of former public officials and legal scholars filed an amicus brief — actually a letter of support — to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to reject Trump’s “attempt to avoid accountability.”
