CNN legal expert says Trump's sentencing appeal is 'beneath the Supreme Court's pay grade'
Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bail him out of sentencing in his New York hush money case, and CNN's Elie Honig tried to predict whether they would even take up the appeal.
The president-elect's attorneys asked the court to halt Friday's scheduled sentencing on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to shield payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, saying that moving forward with the case while he appeals the conviction would do harm to the presidency and the federal government. Prosecutors were expected to file a response by Thursday morning.
"We are going to get a ruling from the Supreme Court sometime in the next 48 hours because Donald Trump's sentencing is scheduled for Friday morning," Honig said. "Now, as to what they're going to do, it would be a fool's errand, I think, to try to predict it."
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Trump's attorneys cited the court's immunity ruling from last year, saying that supported their argument that his state conviction should be overturned, and they argued that the ruling also showed the New York trial court lacked authority to sentence the president-elect until his appeal was decided.
"A reason they might take this case is because this is really the first application of their own immunity ruling, which they issued last summer," Honig said. "But I think you're right, a reason they would not take this case is it's really sort of beneath the Supreme Court's pay grade. It's really a sentencing over a state-level Class E, the lowest-level felony, where the judge has already said, 'I'm intending to sentence him to an unconditional discharge' – meaning to nothing. Ordinarily, the Supreme Court is going to have no part of a dispute about a state case involving a sentencing for the lowest-level felony that's not going to result in any prison time."
"So I don't think we can predict it," Honig added, "but I can see valid reasons either way why the Supreme Court may or may not take it. The good news is we'll find out real soon."
The Supreme Court issued its decision to take the case shortly after.
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