President-elect Donald J. Trump is trying to expunge his conviction before he is inaugurated. He would be the first felon elected to the Oval Office.
By Ben Protess, Kate Christobek and Wesley Parnell, New York Times Jan. 7, 2025
A New York appellate court on Tuesday declined to halt President-elect Donald J. Trump’s criminal sentencing, dealing a significant setback to his hopes of shutting down the case before returning to the White House.
Mr. Trump, who is scheduled to face sentencing on Friday, 10 days before being sworn in for a second presidential term, had asked the appeals court to intervene and freeze the proceeding. His lawyers argued that Mr. Trump was entitled to full immunity from prosecution, and even sentencing, now that he was the president-elect.
The emergency application fell to a single appellate court judge, Ellen Gesmer, who held a brief hearing on Tuesday before denying Mr. Trump’s request within a half-hour.
At the hearing, Justice Gesmer appeared highly skeptical of Mr. Trump’s arguments, grilling Mr. Trump’s lawyer about whether he had “any support for a notion that presidential immunity extends to president-elects?”
The lawyer, Todd Blanche, conceded that he did not, saying: “There has never been a case like this before.”
And when Mr. Blanche argued that Justice Gesmer’s decision hinged on the immunity of a sitting president, she cut him off with a correction, noting that Mr. Trump was currently the president-elect.
Yet Justice Gesmer might not have the final word. Mr. Trump can now race to federal court in hopes of staving off the sentencing, and if that fails, could ask the Supreme Court to intervene.
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