President-elect Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block a New York state court from convicting him of his conviction on criminal charges stemming from money paid to a porn star to maintain her silence.
“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,” his lawyers wrote in a document made public Wednesday.
A day ago, a New York appeals court denied his attempt to stay the sentencing scheduled for Friday in New York state court in Manhattan. In Wednesday’s filing, his attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to immediately order a stay of the case while he pursues an appeal to resolve presidential immunity issues.
They said they had simultaneously asked the state’s highest court for the same emergency relief.
The Supreme Court ordered prosecutors to respond to the request Thursday morning, signaling that the justices can act quickly on the matter.
Trump, who won another term in the White House and will take office on January 20, was convicted by a New York jury of covering up the payment of $130,000 from his former lawyer Michael Cohen to adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election. about a sexual encounter she says they had.
Trump has denied the meeting and any irregularities.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s spokesman, said in a statement that his legal team had asked the Supreme Court “to correct the unfair actions of the New York courts and stop the illegal sentences.”
A spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the case, said prosecutors would respond in court papers.
The hush money case made Trump the first US president, sitting or former, to be charged with a crime and also the first to be convicted.
Since the verdict, his lawyers have made two unsuccessful attempts to have the case dismissed.
In scheduling Trump’s sentencing for Friday, Judge Juan Merchán said he was not willing to sentence Trump to prison and would likely grant him unconditional release, which would put a guilty trial on Trump’s record without any sanctions such as custody, fine or probation. .
Trump’s lawyers have argued that the secret money case should be dismissed in light of the Supreme Court’s landmark July 1 ruling that granted former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts, in a case involving charges penalties for his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
“By repeatedly admitting evidence of President Trump’s official acts during the trial, the trial court violated the principles of presidential immunity that this court enumerated,” Trump’s lawyers said in Wednesday’s filing.
They also maintained that, as president-elect, Trump is immune from prosecution “in the brief but crucial period” between his Nov. 5 election and his Jan. 20 inauguration.
