President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to pause his sentencing in the New York hush money case.
Trump’s sentencing, scheduled for Friday morning, violates the president-elect’s presidential immunity as outlined in a Supreme Court decision in July, according to Trump’s legal team. Allowing the sentencing to move forward would be a “grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
“President Trump’s legal team filed an emergency petition with the United States Supreme Court, asking the Court to correct the unjust actions by New York courts and stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Constitution, and established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed.”
The legal filing states that the hush money case and Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts is on poor legal footing. Part of the evidence used at trial to secure the conviction was based on official acts of the president and should have been shielded from the court.
“These included, without limitation, statements issued through his official Presidential Twitter account to the American people in 2018, statements to the press in official Presidential media appearances, documentary evidence reflecting official Presidential actions, and testimony of former White House employees regarding official actions taken by President Trump during his first term as President,” the filing states.
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The legal team also argued that legal immunity for sitting presidents covers the transition period between the election and when a president assumes office.
“[T]he doctrine of sitting-President immunity shields [Trump] from criminal process during the brief but crucial period of Presidential transition, while he engages in the extraordinarily demanding task of preparing to assume the Executive power of the United States,” the filing says.d
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ordered Bragg’s office to respond to the Trump team’s filing by 10 a.m. Thursday.
The Trump team made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court a day after a New York appeals court rejected a similar petition.
In a legal filing to the appeals court, Bragg’s office argued that Trump as president-elect “has no viable claim of presidential immunity from ordinary criminal process.” Prosecutors said that Trump “is not yet engaged in any official presidential functions that would be disrupted by the sentencing.”
