The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
U.S. Supreme Court Building
January 10, 2025 – The U.S. Supreme Court, in a narrow 5-to-4 decision, declined a Trump defense team motion to block sentencing in President Donald J. Trump's (R) criminal sentencing. The sentencing in the New York care is scheduled for Friday morning.
The Court denied President Trump's emergency request. The majority wrote that Trump is not facing jail time and he can still appeal the conviction.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Sam Alito sided with Trump.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor; Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown sided against the President-elect. Trump appointee Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the swing vote that tilted this decision against Trump.
President Trump faces sentencing on 34 felony counts.
The New York jury found that President-elect Trump knew that his attorney, Michael Cohen, falsified campaign finance records to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels at a golf tournament years before Trump was ever President. Trump denies that the tryst ever happened or that he instructed his former attorney to pay off Ms. Daniels. None of this was illegal, except that the attorney used Trump's campaign funds for the payoff making it a campaign finance law violation. That was only compounded by Cohen's sloppy efforts to falsify the record.
President Trump's lawyers argued before the court that he should have received full immunity from prosecution after being re-elected on November 5.
"Forcing President Trump to prepare for a criminal sentencing in a felony case while he is preparing to lead the free world as president of the United States in less than two weeks imposes an intolerable, unconstitutional burden on him that undermines these vital national interests," the Trump defense team wrote.
New York City elected district attorney Alvin Bragg's lawyers rejected that claim.
"There is a compelling public interest in proceeding to sentencing," Bragg's team argued.
Trump's enemies were encouraged by the Biden White House to prosecute former President Trump for anything that prosecutors could dream.
As part of that concerted effort, Bragg – a partisan Democrat – prosecuted Trump for campaign finance violations stemming from the Stormy Daniels payoff.
The Biden Justice Department appointed Jack Smith as a special counsel to investigate and prosecute Trump any way possible. Smith sent federal agents to raid Trump's Mar-O-Lago, Florida home searching for classified documents. Those indictments were ruled void when the federal judge in the case ruled that Smith had been illegally appointed.
Smith also brought indictments against Trump alleging that he engaged in an insurrection and a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results. Smith had that case dismissed due to Trump's pending January 20 inauguration. On Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled that Smith's special counsel's report can be made public – even though the case is no longer active and all the charges against Trump have been dropped.
A fourth case was brought in Georgia by Fulton County DA Fanni Willis alleging that the Trump campaign and their Georgia allies attempted to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. That case is in legal limbo after Willis and her team were removed from the case over an illicit love affair that Willis engaged in with her top prosecutor.
The New York attorney general – a Democrat – sued Trump for fraud. The jury found against Trump and the Trump corporation. That multi-milion verdict is being appealed.
Trump will return to the White House in ten days.
Original reporting by the New York Times and Washington Post contributed to this report.
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