Jan. 1O (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday rejected President-elect Donald Trump‘s last ditch attempt to delay Friday’s sentencing in his hush-money conviction that was decided back in May.
That nation’s highest court declined 5-to-4 to block Trump’s criminal sentencing, and the president-elect is scheduled to face a New York judge on Friday morning. Trump urged the justices to consider whether he was entitled to an automatic stay of his sentencing. They denied the request.
The president-elect reacted angrily to the case, calling it a “disgrace,” but acknowledged that the Supreme Court order was a “fair decision, actually.”
“This was an attack of a political opponent,” said Trump, who has continued to claim the case was politically motivated.
Judge Juan Merchan of the New York State Supreme Court is overseeing the case, and indicated in a recent ruling that he would not consider a prison term for Trump.
“It’s a judge that shouldn’t have been on the case,” Trump said of Merchan, adding “they can have fun with their political opponent.”
John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, two of the high court’s six conservative justices, joined the three more liberal members in the majority to deny Trump’s request for a delay.
The remaining four justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — were in favor of granting Trump’s delay and cast dissenting votes.
Trump had argued that being sentenced 10 days prior to his inauguration would distract from the presidential transition. “The burden that sentencing will impose on the president-elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial,” the justices wrote in their ruling late Thursday.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump’s attorneys asked the State Court of Appeals to intervene as the U.S. Supreme Court took up his emergency motion to halt the sentencing. The chief appeals clerk notified Trump that Judge Jenny Rivera refused to sign the order to stop the sentencing.
“As a result of the judge’s determination, no motion is pending in the above title at the Court of Appeals,” Clerk Heather Davis wrote on Thursday.
Trump’s last hope to stop the sentencing was with the U.S. Supreme Court, where Trump’s attorneys filed the an emergency motion, which was denied.
Trump said the sentencing should not take place until an appeal can be heard on Merchan’s ruling that his hush-money case is not covered by presidential immunity, an argument rejected by all three court levels in New York, and now by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In May, a jury convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records but legal actions by the president-elect have stalled the process along with a Supreme Court ruling that said that some of his actions while in office should be protected.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that Trump’s actions during the hush-money case and currently are occurring while he out not a sitting president, thus does not qualify him for any immunity.
“The president-elect is, by definition, not yet president,” Bragg’s court filing said, according to ABC News. “The president-elect therefore does not perform any Article II functions under the Constitution, and there are no Article II functions that would be burdened by ordinary criminal process involving the president-elect.”
