Trump Loses NY Appeal to Stop Jan. 10 Hush Money Sentencing
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump lost an appeal to delay his Jan. 10 sentencing in his hush money criminal case, though he still has further means to try to stop the proceedings as he prepares to be sworn in as the 47th US president.
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A New York appeals court judge on Tuesday refused a last-minute request by Trump to delay the sentencing while he seeks to overturn his guilty verdict. Trump could still appeal to New York state’s highest court or even a federal appeals court, which could put the matter on track to the US Supreme Court.
The decision was issued by Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer after a brief hearing where she expressed deep skepticism of Trump’s arguments, including that the sentencing was unfairly set for “mere days” before Trump’s inauguration.
“If he was concerned about this issue, he could have been sentenced in July, or September,” Gesmer said, referring to earlier dates that Trump delayed.
The lower court judge who oversaw the trial, Justice Juan Merchan, has already indicated that he won’t sentence Trump to any time behind bars or even probation, opting instead for a sentence of “unconditional discharge” due to the unique circumstances of the case. But the president-elect argues that allowing the verdict to remain intact would violate presidential immunity.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment. A representative for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, declined to comment.
A Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments to an adult film star before the 2016 election. He is appealing two decisions by Merchan that rejected his argument for vacating the verdict on presidential immunity grounds.
Merchan previously ruled that Trump, as president-elect, doesn’t yet have immunity and that his election victory had no impact on the verdict. The judge also rejected Trump’s argument that the trial was tainted by evidence that shouldn’t have been allowed under the US Supreme Court’s new standard on presidential immunity related to his last term in office.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Trump attorney Todd Blanche argued that the prosecution violated Trump’s presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. Blanche argued the trial wrongfully included evidence of Trump’s actions both before and after he was elected president the first time in 2016.
But the appeals court judge repeatedly reminded Blanche that Trump wasn’t in office at all relevant times, and that Blanche could not cite a single case that gives presidential immunity to someone who isn’t president.
“I don’t find that argument very useful, if that’s the argument you want to make,” Gesmer said after Blanche repeated his presidential immunity claim.
(Updates with detail on the appeals court hearing.)
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