President-elect Donald Trump tried again Tuesday to delay this week’s sentencing in his hush money case, asking a New York appeals court to intervene as he fights to avoid the finality of his conviction before he returns to the White House.
Trump turned to the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court a day after the trial judge, Judge Juan M. Merchan, rebuffed his bid to indefinitely postpone sentencing and ordered it to go ahead as scheduled on Friday.
Trump is seeking an emergency order that would spare him from being sentenced while he appeals Merchan’s decision last week to uphold the historic verdict. Oral arguments were expected before a single judge later Tuesday, with a decision likely soon thereafter.
A quick decision is necessary “to prevent ongoing violations” of Trump’s constitutional rights “and a threatened disruption” of the presidential transition process, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche wrote in a filing with the Appellate Division.
Trump, less than two weeks from his inauguration, is poised to be the first president to take office convicted of crimes. If his sentencing doesn’t happen before his second term starts Jan. 20, presidential immunity could put it on hold until he leaves office.
Merchan has signaled that he is not likely to punish Trump for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and will accommodate the transition by allowing him to appear at sentencing by video, rather than in person at a Manhattan courthouse.
Still, the Republican and his lawyers contend that his sentencing should not go forward because the conviction and indictment should be dismissed. They have previously suggested taking the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Merchan last Friday denied Trump’s request to throw out his conviction and dismiss the case because of his impending return to the White House, ruling that Trump’s current status as president-elect does not afford him the same immunity from criminal proceedings as a sitting president.
Merchan wrote that the interests of justice would only be served by “bringing finality to this matter” through sentencing. He said giving Trump what’s known as an unconditional discharge — closing the case without jail time, a fine or probation — “appears to be the most viable solution.”
In his filing Tuesday, Blanche argued that Merchan’s interpretation of presidential immunity was wrong and that it should extend to a president-elect during “the complex, sensitive process of presidential transition.”
“It is unconstitutional to conduct a criminal sentencing of the president-elect during a presidential transition, and doing so threatens to disrupt that transition and undermine the incoming president’s ability to effectively wield the executive power of the United States,” Blanche wrote.
Trump’s lawyers are also challenging the judge’s prior decision rejecting Trump’s argument that the case should be thrown out because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last July that gave presidents broad immunity from prosecution.
Manhattan prosecutors have pushed for sentencing to proceed as scheduled, “given the strong public interest in prompt prosecution and the finality of criminal proceedings.”
Trump was convicted last May on charges involving an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with him years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong.
The case centered on how Trump accounted for reimbursing his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who had made the payment to Daniels. The conviction carried the possibility of punishment ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.
Trump’s sentencing initially was set for last July 11, then postponed twice at the defense’s request. After Trump’s Nov. 5 election, Merchan delayed the sentencing again so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.
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