President-elect Donald Trump will be sentenced on Friday in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case after the United States Supreme Court rejected his last-minute bid to throw out the case.
The court ruled 5-4 that convicting Trump on 34 felonies would not be an insurmountable burden as he takes back the White House, noting that Judge Juan Merchan has indicated he would not impose jail time, fines or probation on the new president give.
“First, the alleged evidentiary violations at the trial of President-elect Trump may be addressed in the ordinary course of appeal,” the unsigned ruling said.
“Second, the burden that the conviction will place on the responsibilities of the president-elect is relatively insurmountable in light of the court’s stated intention to impose a penalty of ‘unconditional dismissal’ after a brief virtual hearing.”
Among those who supported the decision were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would have stayed sentencing, the order said.
Still, the new president reacted to the decision Thursday evening, insulting Merchan.
“I am innocent of all judge-made, false charges,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Newly elected President Donald Trump will be sentenced on Friday in the Stormy Daniels hush money case
The Court ruled 5-4 that Trump’s conviction on 34 felonies would not pose an insurmountable burden if he takes back the White House
He denounced the decision in a post on his Truth Social platform Thursday evening
Still, he said he appreciated “the time and effort of the United States Supreme Court in its effort to undo the great injustice done to me.”
Trump then repeated the message Thursday evening at a news conference from his Mar-a-Lago estate.
“We’re going to appeal anyway, just psychologically, because it’s a shame, quite frankly,” he said, although he noted that he found a silver lining in reading the Supreme Court’s ruling: according to the New York Times.
‘I read it and I actually thought it was a fair decision, so I’m going to do my thing tomorrow. They can have fun with their little political opponent,” he said, attempting to portray the judge as politically motivated.
Trump’s lawyers had asked for the sentencing to be postponed as he appeals the verdict.
They argued that Trump is immune from criminal proceedings as president-elect, and said some of the evidence used in the Manhattan trial violated the Supreme Court’s immunity decision last summer.
The Supreme Court should immediately halt the proceedings “to prevent serious injustice and damage to the institution of the presidency and the activities of the federal government,” his team argues.
They have said the sentencing should at least be delayed while their appeal plays out to avoid distracting Trump during the transition to the White House.
The Supreme Court should immediately halt the proceedings “to prevent grave injustice and damage to the institution of the presidency and the activities of the federal government,” his team argued.
Judge Juan Merchan has indicated that he will not give the new president a prison sentence, fine or probation
But prosecutors pushed back, saying there is no reason for the court to now take the “extraordinary step” of intervening in a state case.
They also argued that Trump’s lawyers had not proven that an hour-long virtual hearing would constitute a serious disruption, noting that any delay could mean the case would be pushed past the Jan. 20 inauguration.
‘We brought a case. A jury of ordinary New Yorkers returned 34 guilty verdicts,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said at an unrelated news conference Thursday afternoon.
‘Our function at this point is primarily to continue to give voice to that judgment and to respect that, as a principle – the foundation of the administration of justice – that the voice of the jury should not be swept away.’
The Supreme Court’s decision came after a judge on the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, declined to grant a separate request from Trump’s legal team to halt the conviction.
Earlier this week, a judge in the First Department of New York’s Appellate Division in Manhattan denied a similar request.
Prosecutors under the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have pushed back, saying there is no reason for the court to now take the “extraordinary step” of intervening in a state case
Judges in New York have determined that the convictions for falsifying corporate documents were related to personal matters and not to Trump’s official actions as president. Daniels says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
Trump has denied any relationship with Daniels or any wrongdoing.
Thursday’s comes after the conservative-majority court awarded Trump major victories over the past year, preventing states from kicking him off the ballot over the 2021 attack on the Capitol and granting him immunity from prosecution for certain actions he identified as president has committed. a ruling that postponed an election interference case against him.
The justices could also be faced with weighing other parts of the sweeping conservative changes he has promised after coming to power.
But the decision on Trump’s hush money case was nearly overturned after Judge Alito confirmed he had taken a call from the new president.
The conservative judge has since said he spoke by phone with the president-elect on Tuesday to recommend a former law clerk for a job.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito revealed that he spoke to President-elect Trump on the phone the day before Trump’s lawyers asked the court to throw out the conviction in the hush money case
“William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in government office,” Alito said in a statement.
“I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon,” Alito continued.
Alito’s statement was released after the call was first reported by ABC News.
“We also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or could come before the Supreme Court in the future, or previous Supreme Court decisions involving the President-elect,” Alito said.
The unusual communication led to calls for Alito to recuse himself, including from the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
Judges make their own decisions on whether to drop the case and Alito still weighed in on the case, but Alito ultimately stuck with the hush money case and sided with the new president.