Trump Asks Supreme Court to Halt His Hush Money Sentencing (2)

President-elect Donald Trump asked the US Supreme Court to intervene in his hush money criminal case to prevent his Jan. 10 sentencing from going forward.

The filing with the nation’s highest court came after a New York appellate judge ruled the sentencing should proceed, rejecting Trump’s argument that his guilty verdict on 34 felony counts should be vacated in light of his victory in the November presidential election.

The filing is a last-ditch effort by Trump to derail the case before his inauguration on Jan. 20. In his 41-page filing, Trump invoked the sweeping July 1 Supreme Court ruling that upended a separate criminal case against him on grounds of presidential immunity.

“This court should enter an immediate stay of further proceedings in the New York trial court to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government,” Trump’s lawyers said in the filing dated Tuesday and released Wednesday.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who handles emergency matters from New York, asked state prosecutors to respond to the filing by Thursday at 10 a.m. Washington time. Sotomayor is likely to refer the matter to the full nine-member court, which could act at any time after that.

A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case against Trump, said he will respond in court papers.

Justice Juan Merchan, who oversaw the trial, ruled that a president-elect isn’t entitled to the sweeping immunity that a sitting president gets. Even so, the judge has said he won’t sentence Trump to any time behind bars due to his status. Trump wants the verdict tossed out regardless to prevent the sentencing from tainting his presidential transition.

Trump says he will suffer “irreparable harm” if the sentencing goes forward, arguing he would have to operate under the “stigma” from “criminal sentencing” which would “injure his standing and credibility with world leaders.”

A Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to conceal payments to an adult film star before the 2016 election. He is appealing two decisions by Merchan that rejected his argument for vacating the verdict on presidential immunity grounds.

“The Supreme Court’s historic decision on immunity, the Constitution, and established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed,” Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, said in a statement. “The American People elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate that demands an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system.”

No Jail

According to the filing with the Supreme Court, Trump simultaneously filed an application for an emergency stay to the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.

Trump has a history of success before the Supreme Court on presidential immunity. The nation’s highest court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, issued a landmark decision last year in a different criminal case against Trump holding that former presidents are broadly immune from criminal charges stemming from official acts in office.

Bragg has argued Trump doesn’t have immunity because the conviction was handed down months before the election, when Trump wasn’t even president-elect. The appeals process heated up after Merchan ruled last week that the sentencing must proceed because presidents-elect aren’t immune from prosecution.

With jail off the table, Merchan said last week that a sentence of an “unconditional discharge” was the most viable solution, meaning the 78-year-old incoming president would face no real penalty other than having the conviction remain on his record. In theory Trump could have faced up to four years in prison, though the judge said prosecutors already conceded that wasn’t a “practicable recommendation.”

The hush money case was one of four prosecutions against Trump during his presidential campaign, but the only one that made it to trial before the election. Two federal cases, including one over Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, were dropped by the Justice Department after the 2024 election under a long-standing policy that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted. A fourth case, in state court in Georgia, is also in limbo after the Fulton County DA was removed due to an inapproriate relations with another lawyer.

The US Supreme Court case is Trump v. New York, 24A666.

(Updates with detail from Trump’s filing.)

To contact the reporters on this story:
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net;
Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

Peter Jeffrey, Anthony Aarons

© 2025 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission.