A closely divided Supreme Court refused to delay Donald Trump’s criminal sentencing in his hush money case, clearing the way for the president-elect to face judgment in a New York courtroom on Friday and to be formally classified as a felon before he returns to the White House.
Trump turned to the Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to stop the hearing, citing the conservative majority’s explosive opinion in July that granted him and other former presidents immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts.
But five of the nine justices said Trump’s immunity concerns about evidence presented at his trial can be addressed “in the ordinary course on appeal.”
Trump is set to be sentenced Friday, after a jury convicted him of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to an adult-film actress during the 2016 election. New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, has said he does not plan to give the incoming president jail time or probation.
The completion of the sentencing hearing will formalize Trump’s status as the first former president or president-elect convicted of criminal wrongdoing — a designation Trump had hoped to avoid.
A one-paragraph order joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson said the “burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial,” given the lack of jail time and that Trump can appear for the hearing via video feed.
Four conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — indicated that they would have granted Trump’s request.
As is typical in such orders, they did not explain their reasoning.
Trump’s attorneys have tried repeatedly to have his conviction tossed and sentencing delayed, saying he should be shielded from criminal proceedings because they would interfere with his presidential transition.
“Forcing President Trump to defend a criminal case and appear for a criminal sentencing hearing at the apex of the Presidential transition creates a constitutionally intolerable risk of disruption to national security and America’s vital interests,” his lawyers told the justices this week.
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told the justices Thursday there was no basis for the high court to “take the extraordinary step of intervening” to stop the scheduled sentencing.
Prosecutors urged the court to reject Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution before he takes the oath of office and said the president-elect will not be unduly burdened by having to attend by remote video feed a hearing that probably will take less than an hour.
A state appeals court judge on Tuesday denied Trump’s request to stay the sentencing, signaling that judge’s belief that Trump has a low chance of succeeding when the immunity claim is fully evaluated by the appeals court. The state’s highest court rejected Trump’s request to intervene on Thursday.
Trump’s conviction stems from efforts to conceal a payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with him a decade before. Trump denies the encounter ever happened.
Prosecutors said the Daniels payment — made through an intermediary — should have been reported to campaign finance regulators and was illegally concealed by classifying the reimbursement payments as a legal expense.
It was the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial before the election.
He has been dismissed as a party in two of the other cases because he was elected president.
The fourth case in Georgia is stalled in appellate litigation and unlikely to move forward against Trump while he is in the White House.
In the New York case, Trump’s lawyers said the Supreme Court’s immunity decision means state prosecutors should not have been allowed to present evidence at trial of Trump’s official actions while in the White House, including the testimony of close presidential advisers.