NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is still set to be sentenced in his hush money case this week — at least for now — after a New York appeals court judge on Tuesday swiftly rejected his second attempt to get it called off.
Judge Ellen Gesmer, of the state’s mid-level appellate court, denied Trump’s request for an order that would have indefinitely postponed sentencing and halted the case while he appeals a decision last week upholding the verdict.
Gesmer’s ruling leaves Trump’s sentencing on schedule for Friday, though he can still ask other courts to intervene. His lawyers have been fighting for months to have a federal court seize control of the case and have previously suggested taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The judge’s one-sentence decision didn’t give reasons for her denial. At an emergency hearing about an hour before the ruling, she asked probing questions of prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers. The president-elect didn’t attend.
The fast-moving appeals court developments came after the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, on Monday rebuffed Trump’s first attempt to delay his sentencing.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche doubled down on the defense’s contention that Trump can’t be sentenced because, as president-elect, he enjoys the same immunity from criminal proceedings as a president.
“Do you have any support for the notion that presidential immunity extends to the president-elect?” Gesmer asked.
“There’s never been a case like this before. So no,” Blanche responded.
Merchan has rejected the idea of immunity for a president-elect, and prosecutor Steven Wu said it flew in the face of the long-held concept of one president at a time. Trump takes office Jan. 20.
But Blanche has argued that continuing the case could impinge on Trump’s presidential transition — “a process that directly concerns the United States of America’s national security and vital interests.”
When Gesmer quizzed prosecutors about that argument, they noted that Trump can appear virtually at sentencing and that Merchan has signaled that he plans to impose no jail, fine or probation for Trump’s conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
“Those together fully accommodate any concern the defendant might raise,” Wu said.
Blanche countered that Merchan’s stated plans for sentencing Trump aren’t binding and don’t mitigate the defense’s concerns and the potential impact on his presidency. He asked Gesmer: “If Judge Merchan were to sentence President Trump to 11 days in prison, would the court say, ‘OK, now we need to step in?’”
Trump is poised to be the first president to take office after being convicted of crimes.
This week’s flurry of legal activity echoed Trump’s efforts to delay his trial last year, with his lawyers racing to the state court system’s Appellate Division on successive days, only to be denied.
If Trump’s sentencing doesn’t happen before Inauguration Day, presidential immunity could put it on hold until he leaves office.
Either way, Blanche argued, appeals stand to intrude onto Trump’s presidency unless the case is dismissed outright.
Merchan last Friday denied Trump’s request to throw out his conviction and dismiss the case because of his impending return to the White House.
Merchan wrote that the interests of justice would only be served by “bringing finality to this matter” through sentencing. He suggested the “most viable” sentence would be what’s known as an unconditional discharge — closing the case without jail time, a fine or probation.
Manhattan prosecutors have pushed for sentencing to proceed as scheduled, “given the strong public interest in prompt prosecution and the finality of criminal proceedings.”
Trump was convicted last May on charges involving an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with him years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong.
The case centered on how Trump accounted for reimbursing his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who had made the payment to Daniels. The conviction carried the possibility of punishment ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.
Trump’s sentencing initially was set for last July 11, then postponed twice at the defense’s request. After Trump’s Nov. 5 election, Merchan delayed the sentencing again so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.
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