President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to block criminal proceedings in his hush money case in New York, and a sentencing hearing is scheduled for Friday.
The court asked New York prosecutors to respond to Trump’s request by Thursday morning, giving the judges time to act before the sentencing process.
“This Court should immediately stay further proceedings in the New York trial court to avoid grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the new filing.
They argue that the case should not go forward because Trump was protected by presidential immunity, as the Supreme Court recognized earlier this year.
“The Supreme Court’s landmark decision on immunity, the Constitution, and established legal precedent demand that this baseless hoax be immediately dismissed,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
On Tuesday, a New York appeals court judge refused to block the sentence.
Trump was convicted in May of falsifying records related to money his then-attorney Michael Cohen paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential election. Daniels testified that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. , a claim he has denied.
Trump’s lawyers argue that some evidence at trial focused on official actions Trump took while in the White House. They also take the unprecedented step of saying that an elected president should have the same protection from criminal prosecution that a sitting president has.
Judge Juan Merchán, who presided over the trial, initially postponed Trump’s sentencing scheduled for July in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that set a new standard for presidential immunity that month.
But Merchan later concluded that Trump has no immunity until he is sworn in as president. He then ordered Trump’s sentencing on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to take place Friday morning.
The Supreme Court’s controversial presidential immunity ruling came in a separate case in which Trump was accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Now that Trump is about to become president again, that case has been abandoned.
The court ruled that certain official acts performed by presidents are barred from criminal prosecution. Actions taken by a president in his personal capacity would not be protected.
Trump’s request to the Supreme Court was filed by attorney D. John Sauer, whom the presidential election aims to appoint as attorney general, his administration’s main defender in the courts. Another Trump lawyer named in the filing, Todd Blanche, is Trump’s pick to be deputy attorney general.
