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The US Supreme Court has rejected Trump’s last-minute request to stay his sentence on Friday in his criminal hush money case.
The president asked the High Court to consider whether he had the right to automatically suspend the sentence, but the justices rejected the request by a score of 5-4.
Trump was found guilty of falsifying records in 2016 to conceal $130,000 in payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case, said in a recent ruling that he will not consider jail time for Trump.
The president-elect reacted angrily to the ruling on Thursday afternoon, telling reporters it was “shameful” but also “a fair decision, frankly.”
“He is a judge who should not be in the case,” he said, apparently referring to Justice Merchan, adding that “they can have fun with his political opponent.”
Two conservative Supreme Court justices — John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett — joined three liberals in the majority to deny Trump’s request for a delay.
The remaining four justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – would accept Trump’s offer.
Alito has been criticized for speaking to Trump in a phone call a day before the decision, when the top judge recommended one of his former secretaries to work in the incoming president’s administration.
Three lower New York courts rejected Trump’s delay attempt before the Supreme Court made its final decision Thursday afternoon to proceed with the ruling as planned.
The justices denied Trump’s request because they believed his concerns could be addressed on appeal.
They also wrote that the burden of going to court is “unfounded”.
Trump’s lawyers also asked the Supreme Court to consider whether president-elects have immunity from criminal prosecution.
Manhattan prosecutors asked the Supreme Court to dismiss Trump’s request, arguing that there was a “compelling public interest” in upholding the ruling and that there was “no basis for such intervention.”
After the jury’s guilty verdict in May 2024, Trump was originally due to be sentenced in July, but his lawyers convinced Justice Merchani to postpone the sentencing on three occasions.
Last week, Justice Merchan announced that the ruling would go ahead on January 10, just days before Trump is sworn in as president.
The days since have seen a flurry of appeals and court filings from Trump’s lawyers, trying to get the ruling out of the way.
But the New York appeals courts subsequently rejected the bids.
Finally, on Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene.
The court should suspend the proceedings “to avoid injustice and serious damage to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government,” they wrote.
The bench’s 6-3 conservative majority handed Trump a major victory last year when it ruled that US presidents were immune from criminal prosecution for “official acts” in office.
That decision overturned a federal indictment against Trump on charges he illegally interfered with the results of the 2020 election, which he denied and pleaded not guilty to.
But since his re-election, Trump’s lawyers have tried to convince some judges that those presidential immunity protections should also apply to a president-elect in this Manhattan criminal case.
Manhattan prosecutors argued in their report to the Supreme Court that Trump’s “claim for exceptional immunity is not supported by any court decision.”
“The existence of only one president at a time is axiomatic,” wrote the prosecutor.
Separately, a group of former public officials and law professors filed an amicus brief, essentially a letter of support, at the Supreme Court asking the justices to reject Trump’s “attempt to evade accountability.”
In another legal setback for Trump on Thursday, a federal appeals court in Georgia rejected a bid to block the release of part of special counsel Jack Smith’s report to prevent the transfer of power to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.
Attorneys for former assistant Walt Nauta and former Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira argued that the dismissal would unfairly prejudice future criminal cases against them.
