President-elect Trump’s request to pause the sentencing in the phony hush money case has just been denied by the New York Appeals Court, meaning sentencing will happen on Friday.
Via Fox News:
Here’s more from Andrew McCarthy at NRO:
An appeals court judge has denied President-elect Trump’s motion to delay the sentencing set for Friday while he appeals the rulings of the lower court rejecting his immunity claim.
Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer of the Appellate Division, First Judicial Department (which hears appeals from lower state courts in Manhattan) heard oral argument early this afternoon, then swiftly denied the president-elect’s motion without elaboration. While I am still reviewing reports of the argument (which was not televised or live-streamed), it appears that Judge Gesmer was sympathetic to the argument of prosecutor Steven Wu, the chief of appeals for the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, that the immunity which sitting presidents enjoy from criminal proceedings does not extend to presidents-elect.
Judge Juan Merchan presided over the criminal case in which a jury, in late May, found Trump guilty on 34 counts of business records falsification. As I’ve detailed, Judge Merchan has scheduled Trump’s sentencing for this Friday morning. That is after rejecting Trump’s claims that Bragg’s introduction at trial of evidence of Trump’s official acts as president violated the principles outlined in the Supreme Court’s July 1 immunity ruling — United States v. Trump (which arose out of a federal prosecution against Trump that has since been dismissed).
Merchan is anxious to sentence Trump. If the sentencing does not happen before Trump’s inauguration as president, whereupon he will have immunity from criminal proceedings, no sentencing could happen until Trump is out of office, presumably in 2029. Of more immediate importance to Merchan, Bragg, and other New York Democrats is that the entry of judgment does not occur in a criminal case until sentence is imposed; they want Trump to enter office formally adjudicated as a convicted felon.
Judge Gesmer, of the appellate division, was unmoved by the argument of Todd Blanche, Trump’s attorney, that the importance of the presidential transition, which has been recognized by Congress, should extend to presidents-elect the immunity from criminal proceedings that sitting presidents enjoy. As Blanche pointed out, the same concerns that informed the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling — namely, that a president must not be distracted by criminal proceedings while performing the weighty responsibilities of the chief executive — are applicable during the transition.
Blanche and the rest of Trump’s legal team will no doubt continue attempting to get a higher court, and perhaps the federal courts, to intervene and stay the sentencing while Trump appeals Merchan’s immunity ruling. But time is running out. Merchan has set sentencing for Friday morning. He has signaled that he intends to sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge — i.e., no term of incarceration or probation and no fine. He also ruled that Trump does not need to attend the sentencing in person; he is permitted to be present remotely.
I hate this so much and I’m sure you do too, but none more than President Trump himself. This attack is all about narrative and it’s completely unfair given Trump’s appeal of the case. As McCarthy says, they want him to be a convicted felon president.