Trump plays his last cards to stop his sentencing: Going to the Supreme Court
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- President-elect Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to block Friday's hush-money sentencing in NY.
- Wednesday's request seeks "to prevent grave injustice and harm to the presidency."
- The court asked for a response by 10 a.m. Thursday from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.
Lawyers for Donald Trump have asked the US Supreme Court to block the president-elect's Manhattan hush-money sentencing, currently set for Friday.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor is assigned to handle emergency applications from New York for the court, and she will get first pass at the application.
Sotomayor, nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009, wrote a scathing dissent of the high court's July 1 opinion granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution. The 525-page application filed by Trump on Wednesday morning refers to presidential immunity more than 300 times, and argues that it voids his conviction and indictment.
If she is unpersuaded by Trump's application, she will refer it to the full panel of justices, where he would need a majority 5/9 vote to prevail.
There is enough time between now and 9:30 a.m. Friday — the scheduled sentencing time — for a full panel decision, said Michel Paradis, who teaches constitutional law at Columbia Law School.
"If they want to, they can do it," Paradis said, adding that the justices can forgo oral arguments and decide on the paperwork alone.
The wording on a denial, should one come, would be terse, he said: "The application for a stay having been bought before Justice Sotomayor, and by her referred to the whole court, is denied."
If Trump wins, "that would be a few more lines, accompanied probably by a briefing schedule on the merits," he said, potentially pushing the matter past the January 20 inauguration, after which presidential immunity from prosecution kicks in.
In that instance, the sentencing could be postponed until after Trump leaves office in 2029, assuming SCOTUS doesn't toss the case on constitutional and immunity grounds.
Trump's 11th-hour bid to avoid sentencing comes one day after a New York appellate judge nixed a similar stay, rejecting arguments by a defense lawyer that presidential immunity from prosecution extends to presidents-elect.
Defense lawyers on Wednesday morning simultaneously filed an application with the state's highest appellate court seeking to block Trump's sentencing. That application was rejected Thursday morning.
Prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed response papers Thursday morning, as requested by Sotomayor.
The response argued that SCOTUS has no jurisdiction over the case until after a final judgment of sentence, and took a swipe at what Bragg called Trump's "novel invocation of President-elect immunity." Such a thing does not exist, the DA argued.
SCOTUS can now decide at any time whether the sentencing happens as scheduled.
Trump is seeking "to correct the unjust actions by New York courts and stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.'s Witch Hunt," Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said. "The Supreme Court's historic decision on Immunity, the Constitution, and established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed."
January 9, 2025: This story was updated to reflect ongoing developments in the legal cases.
