As our David Zimmermann reported last night, a divided Supreme Court green-lighted New York judge Juan Merchan’s determination to sentence President-elect Trump at 9:30 this morning on the 34 business-records falsification counts on which he was found guilty in May in the absurd prosecution brought by Manhattan’s progressive Democratic DA Alvin Bragg.

Trump has said that he respects the Court’s 5–4 decision and will attend the sentencing remotely rather than in person. As I explained in an op-ed at Fox News last night, the High Court’s assurance that the sentencing would be a negligible burden on the presidential transition was key to the decision:

The majority rationalized that Trump will not be meaningfully harmed by the sentencing, for two principal reasons. First, the Court did not rule on the merits of Trump’s contention that presidential immunity from criminal prosecution was violated by the district attorney’s introduction at trial of evidence of his official presidential acts. That is, Trump will still be able to raise on appeal his immunity claim, along with various other claims of significant error in the proceedings. The appeal cannot proceed until Trump is sentenced and the judgment is entered, so sentencing will clear the way for that process.

Second, the Court effectively locked Merchan into his stated inclination to give Trump a conditional discharge sentence. In theory, Merchan’s signaling of that intention (in a written opinion last week) was not binding – technically, a judge is not supposed to decide the sentence until hearing from the parties at the sentencing proceeding, which won’t happen until Friday morning. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court majority’s conclusion that the sentencing poses minimal burden on Trump’s presidential transition hinges on Merchan’s assurance that he was leaning toward a no-jail, no-probation sentence. If Merchan were to change his mind at this point and impose a term of incarceration, the High Court would regard it as a betrayal. Practically speaking, then, Merchan has no choice but to do what he indicated he would do.

The full op-ed is here. This morning’s proceeding should be short if not sweet.