Appeals court rejects Trump’s latest attempt to get Friday’s hush money sentencing called off
Associated PressNEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump is still set to be sentenced in his hush money case this week — at least for now — after a New York appeals court judge on Tuesday swiftly rejected his second attempt to get it called off. Judge Ellen Gesmer, of the state’s mid-level appellate court, denied Trump’s request for an order that would have indefinitely postponed sentencing and halted the case while he appeals a decision last week upholding the verdict. The fast-moving appeals court developments came after the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, on Monday rebuffed Trump’s first attempt to delay his sentencing. But Blanche has argued that continuing the case could impinge on Trump’s presidential transition — “a process that directly concerns the United States of America’s national security and vital interests.” When Gesmer quizzed prosecutors about that argument, they noted that Trump can appear virtually at sentencing and that Merchan has signaled that he plans to impose no jail, fine or probation for Trump’s conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Manhattan prosecutors have pushed for sentencing to proceed as scheduled, “given the strong public interest in prompt prosecution and the finality of criminal proceedings.” Trump was convicted last May on charges involving an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with him years earlier.