President-elect Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in his criminal trial for purchasing silence to prevent his sentencing scheduled for January 10 from proceeding.
The request to the nation’s highest court came after a New York appeals judge rejected Trump’s argument that his guilty verdict on 34 criminal counts should be overturned in light of his victory in November’s presidential election, which would have blocked the sentence.
The petition is a last-ditch effort by Trump to put the case behind him before his Jan. 20 inauguration. The outcome depends on Trump’s argument that the verdict violates his presidential immunity, even though he has not yet been sworn in.
“This court must enter an immediate stay of further proceedings in the New York trial court to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government,” Trump’s lawyers said in the petition.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who handles emergency matters for New York, asked state prosecutors to respond to the petition by Thursday. A spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case against Trump, said they will respond in court documents.
Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the trial, has already stated that he will not sentence Trump to serve prison time due to his status as president-elect. But Trump wants the verdict overturned regardless to prevent the ruling from tainting his presidential transition.
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According to the Supreme Court petition, Trump simultaneously filed a request for an emergency stay with the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.
“Forgery of business records”
A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty in May of falsifying business records to hide payments to an adult film star before the 2016 election. He is appealing two Merchan rulings that rejected his argument to overturn the verdict on the basis of presidential immunity.
Bragg argued that Trump does not have immunity because the conviction was handed down months before the election, when Trump was not even president-elect. The appeals process intensified after Merchan ruled last week that the sentence should proceed because elected presidents are not immune from prosecution.
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With prison out of the question, Merchan said last week that a sentence of “unconditional release” was the most viable solution, meaning the 78-year-old president-elect would face no real penalty other than having the conviction on his record. In theory, Trump could have faced up to four years in prison, although the judge said that prosecutors had already admitted that this was not a “practical recommendation”.
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