WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to call off Friday’s sentencing in his hush money case in New York.
Trump’s lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court Wednesday after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The Supreme Court asked for a response from prosecutors in New York by Thursday.
Trump’s attorneys asked for an immediate stay of Friday’s sentencing “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government.”
The Republican president-elect’s spokesman Steven Cheung called for the case to be dismissed in a statement. The Manhattan district attorney’s office said it will respond in court papers.
Merchan has indicated he will not impose jail time, fines or probation.
Trump’s attorneys have pointed to the Supreme Court’s ruling giving him broad immunity from criminal prosecution as they tried to have his New York conviction tossed out.
While that opinion came in a separate election interference case against him, Trump’s lawyers say it means some of the evidence used against him in his hush money trial should have been shielded by presidential immunity. Merchan has disagreed.
Wednesday’s filing is signed by John Sauer, Trump’s pick for solicitor general, who also represented him before the high court in the election interference case.
Story by Lindsay Whitehurst and Mark Sherman. Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.
