An appeals court in New York has rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s attempt to halt proceedings in his business records case, which is scheduled for sentencing on Jan. 10.
The Jan. 7 decision was issued just hours after Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche filed an emergency request with the court.
“To go forward with a sentencing, with its inevitable threat of stigma, opprobrium, and potential criminal penalties, would pose risks to America’s vital interests that are intolerable and unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause and the doctrine of Presidential immunity,” Blanche said in a filing obtained by Lawfare.
The emergency filing was made after New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan rejected Trump’s attempt to delay sentencing.
Trump had asked Appellate Division, First Judicial Department—the intermediate appellate court in New York—to review Merchan’s rulings on his claims of presidential immunity.
Trump had attempted to get the case dismissed, stating that he enjoyed immunity from further proceedings as president-elect and that the prosecution improperly used evidence prohibited by the doctrine of presidential immunity. Merchan disagreed, set sentencing for Jan. 10, and denied Trump’s request for a delay.
“This court has considered Defendant’s arguments in support of his motion and finds that they are for the most part, a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past,” Merchan said in his decision on Jan. 6.
In a filing submitted earlier that day, Trump’s attorneys argued that the president-elect’s pursuit of an appeal meant proceedings in the court should be automatically stayed.
Trump’s emergency filing was lodged less than two weeks before his inauguration on Jan. 20 and follows the dismissal of two federal cases against him.
Blanche told the New York appeals court on Jan. 7 that the proceedings in Merchan’s court should be halted pending resolution of his claims about presidential immunity, “any further appeals that arise from it, and any other related legal proceeding.”
It’s unlikely that Trump will face prison time or any significant penalty in the case.
Blanche indicated the appeals court should intervene regardless of whether Trump receives a term of imprisonment.
“The prospect of imposing sentence on President Trump just before he assumes Office as the 47th President raises the specter of other possible restrictions on liberty, such as travel, reporting requirements, registration, probationary requirements, and others—all of which would be constitutionally intolerable under the doctrine of sitting-President immunity,” he said.
Part of Trump’s argument was that he was entitled to an automatic stay in proceedings given that he was appealing based on presidential immunity.
When Merchan denied Trump’s request to delay sentencing on Jan. 6, he did not directly dispute Trump’s claim that he was entitled to an automatic stay.
In December, Merchan rejected Trump’s various immunity-related objections to the evidence used during trial.
He said that Trump waited too long or failed to preserve objections to evidence and that information related to both preserved and unpreserved arguments did not receive protection under the doctrine of presidential immunity.
“This Court ... finds that the evidence related to the preserved claims relate entirely to unofficial conduct and thus, receive no immunity protections,” Merchan wrote in an opinion.
He also held that Trump was attempting to use a novel theory of immunity for presidents-elect and that current precedent didn’t require the case’s dismissal.
