President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US Supreme Court to pause his sentencing in the hush money case, a highly unusual request that relies in part on the court\u2019s decision last year to grant him broad immunity from criminal prosecution. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s emergency appeal arrived a day after a state appeals court in New York rejected his request to postpone his sentencing, which is set for Friday. <\/p>\n
The pause is required, Trump\u2019s attorneys told the court, \u201cto prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government.\u201d <\/p>\n
In response to Trump\u2019s filing, a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said, \u201cWe will respond in court papers.\u201d <\/p>\n
The high court has asked prosecutors respond by 10 a.m. ET on Thursday. <\/p>\n
The president-elect is appealing his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, arguing it should be tossed because a conservative majority of the Supreme Court in July ruled that former presidents are entitled to sweeping immunity for official actions. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s latest request to the US Supreme Court is unusual \u2013 and likely an uphill fight \u2013 because his criminal case isn\u2019t yet fully resolved by New York courts. Judge Juan Merchan, the trial judge in New York, has rejected Trump\u2019s demands to stop the Friday sentencing. <\/p>\n
Merchan has signaled that Trump, who will be inaugurated on January 20, will face no legal penalties. <\/p>\n
Trump was\u202fconvicted in May of falsifying business records\u202fover payments to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, in order to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair before the 2016 election. Trump has denied the affair. <\/p>\n
Merchan upheld Trump\u2019s conviction last week. <\/p>\n
Earlier Tuesday, a New York appellate judge swiftly rejected Trump\u2019s postponement request following a brief hearing. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s attorney Todd Blanche, whom he\u2019s picked to serve as a top Justice Department official in his incoming administration, argued during the hearing that the court should stop the sentencing, while acknowledging the situation was unprecedented. Though Merchan has denied two arguments to vacate Trump\u2019s conviction, Blanche argued that either of them should allow for a stay of proceedings while the appeal is litigated. <\/p>\n
The Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office, meanwhile, argued Trump\u2019s team has not put forward any argument that a one-hour sentencing hearing would disrupt Trump\u2019s responsibilities as president-elect. <\/p>\n
If Trump\u2019s lawyers are successful in halting the proceedings before he is sworn-in in fewer than two weeks, the hush money case could linger for months while his attorneys pursue an appeal to toss out the conviction. <\/p>\n
Trump is relying heavily on the Supreme Court\u2019s controversial immunity decision from last year in a new filing Wednesday in which he is asking the high court to pause delay his sentencing. <\/p>\n
He is also arguing that continuing to defend himself in the hush money case would distract from the transition and potentially jeopardize national security. <\/p>\n
\u201cDefending criminal litigation at all stages \u2013 especially, as here, defending a criminal sentencing \u2013 is uniquely taxing and burdensome to a criminal defendant,\u201d Trump\u2019s lawyers told the high court. <\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump is currently engaged in the most crucial and sensitive tasks of preparing to assume the executive power in less than two weeks, all of which are essential to the United States\u2019 national security and vital interests,\u201d they wrote. <\/p>\n
Merchan had previously rejected Trump\u2019s arguments around immunity, concluding that Trump\u2019s hush money case involved unofficial conduct that is not entitled to protection. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat decision, among many others made by the trial court, was made in error and, if allowed to stand, would gravely undermine the American Presidency as we know it,\u201d Trump told the US Supreme Court in his emergency appeal. <\/p>\n
Trump also asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday for an administrative pause on the lower court\u2019s proceedings. If the Supreme Court accepts that idea, it would give the justices a few days to review legal briefs in the case before deciding on Trump\u2019s underlying request. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US Supreme Court to pause his sentencing in the hush money case, a highly unusual request that relies in part on the court\u2019s decision last year to grant him broad immunity from criminal prosecution. Trump\u2019s emergency appeal arrived a day after a state appeals court in New York <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradinginsightsdaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}