Trump asks Supreme Court to block sentencing in New York criminal case

WASHINGTON —  President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to block a New York judge from sentencing him Friday over his felony conviction in a hush money case.

The justices “should order an immediate stay of criminal proceedings against President Trump in the New York trial court, including but not limited to the criminal sentencing hearing scheduled for January 10, 2025,” his attorney John Sauer said in an emergency appeal filed early Wednesday.

“A sitting president, or president-elect, does not have to subject himself in any case to an individual judge’s case-by-case balancing of the burdens on the presidency — an inquiry that itself violates the separation of powers and the Supremacy Clause,” he wrote.

“Most fundamentally, forcing President Trump to defend a criminal case and appear for a criminal sentencing hearing at the apex of the presidential transition creates a constitutionally intolerable risk of disruption to national security and America’s vital interests,” he wrote.

The New York case has proceeded entirely in state courts in a prosecution brought by the Manhattan district attorney.

A jury last year found Trump guilty of falsifying business records, a crime under New York law, when he repaid his former attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 he paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels just prior to the 2016 election. Trump wrote 34 checks describing these payments as legal expenses, and he was convicted on 34 counts.

Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, said he would not sentence Trump to prison or impose any fine, but he refused to delay the sentencing.

Two weeks ago Sauer filed an unusual friend-of-the-court brief in the pending TikTok case that urges the justices to put the matter on hold and allow the incoming president time to work out a deal.

On Friday, the court will hear TikTok’s free-speech claim that it would violate the 1st Amendment to shut down the popular video site in the United States due to security concerns over its Chinese parent company.