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The New York Court of Appeals rejected President-elect Donald Trump's request to stay his conviction on Friday after pleading guilty last year to 34 counts of forgery.
Prosecutors accused Trump of a scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election by concealing a payment made to former porn star Stormy Daniels. She says she had an intimate relationship with the former president. But Trump has rejected these accusations and called the trial against him a political witch hunt. He has appealed the case and is trying to overturn it entirely.
The appeals court's decision today, which denied Trump's request to delay the announcement of the sentence, comes 10 days before the inauguration of the president-elect, which will take place on January 20.
Yesterday, the judge of the case, Juan Merchan, rejected the request of Trump's lawyers to postpone the sentence, while two appeals against the judge's previous decisions are being judged in the appeal.
Merchan said he did not anticipate sending Trump to prison or punishing him.
If the sentencing process, scheduled to take place on January 10, does not happen before the start of Trump's second term, on January 20, due to presidential immunity, the case would be suspended until he leaves the White House.
In today's 30-minute appeals court hearing, Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer asked Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche, for more clarification on his argument that the president's immunity from prosecution extends to the transition period, from victory at the inauguration.
"Do you support the concept that presidential immunity also extends to an elected president?", was the question that Assistant Judge Ellen Gesmer asked.
Blanche replied "no" adding that "there has never been a case like this before". Blanche also raised the possibility that the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, would hand down a prison sentence that he said would last after Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, although the judge himself has signaled that he has no plans to do so. such.
Ms. Gesmer asked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to address Trump's lawyers' argument that the sentence would interfere with the presidential transition.
Steven Wu, the state's attorney, said Mr. Merchan had handled the case by scheduling the sentencing before the inauguration, allowing Trump to appear virtually but not physically at the hearing, and giving signals that he did not anticipate being sentenced to life in prison. jail
Wu also noted that the sentencing was originally scheduled for July and had been pushed back several times at Trump's request. He rejected the former president's arguments that the time when the sentence would be given was "illogical". Ms. Gesmer seemed to agree with such reasoning.
"If he was concerned about this issue, he could have allowed this process to take place in July and September," Gesmer said.
Referring to Judge Merchan, Trump said Tuesday that he is an "unprincipled judge" who was making it difficult to carry out a smooth transition of power.
"Remember this is a man who said he wanted the transition to be smooth," Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday at Mar A Lago before the appeal hearings began.
Trump added that the judge works to create concerns for Americans while stressing that he has not committed any legal violations.
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment that Mr. Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence before the 2016 election about an intimate relationship she says than there was with Trump a decade ago. Trump himself has rejected such a thing.
Trump has argued that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, filed the lawsuit with the intention of harming his chances of re-election in 2024./ VOA
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