Trump makes yet another bid to get guilty verdicts in hush money case tossed before Friday sentencing

Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News on Jan 7, 2025

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NEW YORK — Lawyers for Donald Trump petitioned a New York appeals court on Tuesday to throw out the guilty verdicts against him before his sentencing later this week in a last-ditch attempt to close the book on his criminal hush money case before he takes office.

The filing to the First Department, Appellate Division appeals court came a day after Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan denied a defense request to halt Trump’s sentencing from going forward Friday as Trump appeals various decisions upholding the guilty verdicts against him. Merchan unexpectedly scheduled the proceeding in a decision last week.

Trump’s Tuesday appeals court filing — taking the form of a so-called Article 78 petition, which targets Merchan’s rulings — says it seeks “to redress the serious and continuing infringement on his Presidential immunity from criminal process that he holds as the 45th and soon-to-be 47th President of the United States of America.”

“Justice Merchan is without authority under the law to proceed to sentencing while President Trump exercises his federal constitutional right to challenge these rulings,” Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote, demanding the verdict be vacated and the charges dismissed.

“Any criminal sentence, or even the distraction of ongoing criminal proceedings — including appeals necessary to vindicate the Presidential immunity doctrine and President Trump’s individual constitutional rights — threatens to disrupt the enormously burdensome task of undergoing a Presidential transition,” they later wrote.

Blanche and Bove, who Trump has tapped for two top roles at his Department of Justice, could not immediately be reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, said prosecutors would oppose the request.

Arguments were expected at the appeals court Tuesday. Trump’s lawyers were expected to argue for emergency relief for an interim “stay,” or pause, of the sentencing.

In his Friday decision that announced the sentencing, Merchan said he did not plan to impose a jail term or any other form of punishment and that Trump could appear by video. He decided Trump, as president-elect, was not shielded by the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling that granted the president sweeping protections from criminal actions and that the case shouldn’t be tossed in light of Trump winning the presidential election.

In December, the judge found that the Supreme Court ruling didn’t shield Trump from criminal liability before he won the election.

The barrage of court filings comes as Trump gears up for his inauguration on Jan. 20, set to become the first felon to serve as U.S. president. The Manhattan case was the only one of four brought against him after his first term that made it before a jury, and as the charges are state-level, he cannot pardon himself of them.

A jury of 12 Manhattan residents on May 30 found Trump, 78, guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a scheme to hide embarrassing details about his past from the electorate in 2016.

The case centered on payments he made to Michael Cohen after his first presidential term began, which reimbursed his longtime former fixer for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels in the leadup to the election. Trial evidence showed Daniels was one of three hush money recipients.

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