Update at the end.
Justice Sotomayor handles emergency requests from New York for the Supreme Court. She has the first stab at dealing with Trump's lawyer's appeal to vacate Trump's sentencing by judge Juan Merchan for the 34 felony convictions, prosecuted by Alvin Bragg, and decided by 12 jurors unanimously.
Sotomayor wrote a scathing dissent for the Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling in July of last year.
The filing by Trump's lawyers Wednesday morning to the NY Supreme Court is 525 pages long. It refers to presidential immunity over 300 times, as though that would void his conviction and the original indictment in a New York state court, on non-official acts committed by Trump before he took office and the non-official acts he made after he took office. Bragg's filing is also here.
It's all non-official acts which the US Supreme Court said were not covered by presidential immunity.
If Justice Sotomayor sees the filing as invalid, she has to refer the matter to the full court. A five-four decision for a stay, would stop the sentencing on Friday, and the Supreme Court would delay action until after Trump takes office, so sentencing couldn't be done until he left office in 2029.
That's unless they Supreme Court decides to take the case to decide whether the original indictment and conviction are invalid.
Trump's lawyers are far from perfect. They were supposed to file at the New York Court of Appeals before going to the Supreme Court. They went to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but it wasn't until Wednesday afternoon that they got to the New York Court of Appeals.
There was a breach of Supreme Court etiquette when Justice Alito took a phone call from Donald Trump before Trump's lawyers filed their brief at the Supreme Court to overturn Trump's conviction and eliminate sentencing by Judge Merchon on Friday at 9:30 a.m.
Justice Alito revealed the call, but said it was about Trump asking the Justice about making a recommendation for one of his law clerks to be part of the Trump administration. So, Trump made the call. Why would Trump even need to when it was about one of Justice Alito's law clerks? Considering the qualifications he's got for most of his nominees this should have been a slam dunk, not even needing a phone call.
With everything else Trump's lawyers are trying to do to get him out of his sentencing and trying to reverse the conviction, he's now into Justice tampering. I can't believe that there's any kind of innocence to this phone call, considering it's timing.
Todd Branch was informed by the New York Court of Appeals clerk that, "Your proposed order to show cause was reviewed by Judge Rivera, who declined to sign the order. As a result of the Judge's determination, no motion is pending in the above title at the Court of Appeals."
Apparently there is a higher court of appeals than the one yesterday, Judge Gesmer, who ruled against Trump's motion there. Reports keep claiming that this court of appeals was the highest court in New York, it is. The Supreme Court of New York is a trial court, and the Court of Appeals is the highest court in New York. However, the NY Supreme Court also turned down Trump's request on January 3rd.
The New York Court of Appeals Thursday decision was accompanied by Alvin Bragg's request that, "Notwithstanding defendant"s past and upcoming service as president, his history, character, and condition, and especially his open disregard for the justice system, do not support dismissal."
I read Todd Blanche and Emil Bove's filing at the Supreme Court. It's 51 pages long PDF. Blanche is arguing that evidence revealed in the 34 felony convictions case was inadmissible because they covered official acts. That tainted the prosecutions case, so the conviction should be thrown out. If it was, the prosecutors could re-file, but Blanche would block that, too, because Trump will be president before that could happen.
Blanche is also arguing that presidential immunity extends to the President-elect. That is impossible because that would mean there are two presidents at the same time.
Last, he asks that criminal proceedings against Trump, sentencing, be stayed while his claim is adjudicated at the NY Court of Appeals, which was denied Thursday morning, or at the Supreme Court. So that ask is moot.
Basically, Blanche argues that there's no such thing as non-official acts when Trump does something. We got that from Richard Nixon in his interview with David Frost, when he said, "Well, when the President does it, that means it is not illegal."
Bragg's response to Blanch's filing at the Supreme Court is in. 44 pages PDF.
- Trump's conviction was valid regardless. Presidential immunity does not apply.
- Removal of case to Federal Court was denied on jurisdiction.
- Post-trial motion to vacate was denied.
- Didn't file on time for removal to federal court the second time.
- Post-trial motion to dismiss was denied.
- Motion to stay in appellate court was denied.
- Motion to stay at the NY Court of Appeals denied.
Quite a laundry list of failures for Trump and his lawyers. Trump and Blanche just don't understand the word "no."
I'm going to paraphrase Bragg's filing.
Bragg says there is no harm attached because every convience has been afforded Trump. Appearing remotely. "This extraordinary immunity claim is unsupported by any decision from any court."
There's no immunity because he's not the sitting president. The suit against Trump is valid because though he will be president, he isn't now.
He can take one hour out if his life for sentencing. No harm.
The Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction over a non-final state proceeding. Meaning Trump can still appeal after sentencing. In fact, he can't appeal the conviction until he is sentenced.
Trump hasn't justified taking up the Supreme Court's time.
Defendant's novel creation of Presidential-Elect immunity is totally bogus.
Objection to evidence is available on appeal, not now.
Calling Tweets official acts is stretching the imagination.
Calling everything he did while president (official and non-official) as official refutes Supreme Court's own ruling.
Challenges to Michael Cohen's and Stormy Daniel's testimony is without merit.
Use of the Office of Government Ethics form is stated in law. Cannot object to its use.
Jaime Raskin just called for Justice Alito to recuse himself from Trump's case.
"Justice Alito's decision to have a personal phone call with President Trump, who obviously has an active and deeply personal matter before the court, makes clear he fundamentally misunderstands the basic requirements of judicial ethics, or, more likely, believes himself to be above judicial ethics altogether," Maryland Rep. Jaime Raskin said in a statement Thursday.
"In our democracy, Americans expect their cases to be heard by impartial judges. The mere act of having a personal phone call with the president-elect, while he has active interests in matters currently pending before the court, is plainly sufficient to triggers a situation in which the justices 'impartiality might reasonably be questioned,'" Raskin added.
Senator Richard Blumenthal was a bit more terse. "Brazenly unapologetic, Justice Alito has made impropriety the norm," he wrote on social media. "This inexcusable call with Trump certainly should compel recusal, disquality him from this case, and much more. The Court's current supposed ethical standards are an unenforceable sham."
The New York Times Adam Liptak noted, "It was not clear, however, why Mr. Trump would make a call to check references, a test generally left to lower level aides."
Joyce Vance commented, "Alito said he didn't know Trump was headed to SCOTUS, which is really odd, because the whole rest of the legal world knew it was coming."
I will update when anything happens with the Supreme Court. If they want to stay the sentencing, it has to be today.
Maybe I'm wrong. It's currently almost 7:00 p.m. eastern time as I write this. And there's no word. The Supreme Court normally doesn't work late. If it was going to be a refusal, it would have happened quickly. I don't like this delay. I don't think there's any way they could do it in the morning. They don't start till 9:30 in the morning either and that's the time Donald will be sentenced.
Trump lost his case!
A 5-4 decision has Trump being sentenced tomorrow at 9:30 am by Judge Merchan. Justice Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices.
The brief unsigned order said that the issues Trump wants to raise "can be addressed in the ordinary course of an appeal." The burden that the sentencing imposes on Trump is "relatively unsubstantial", the court added, because Trump is not going to receive any prison time.
Strangely enough, spokespeople for Trump did not respond to a request for comment Thursday night.
This does not, however, stop the controversy that was created by Trump calling Justice Alito before the court received notice that Trump's lawyers wanted emergency action.
Justices Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch need to explain themselves. If it was obvious for Roberts and Barrett to vote against Trump, why couldn't they see the same? It should have been a unanimous ruling. I'm just ruminating here, because we'll never know what they were thinking, because they never explain themselves, except when they're caught red handed, and then make up excuses that don't bear any relation to reality.
For once, a little justice is served on Donald Trump. I want to see a tape of the sentencing.
You can read the unsigned order over here.
It didn't take Trump long to respond.
Wherever he is right now he found a way to get on his phone to complain after Jimmy Carter's funeral.
He still whines like a child about it.
I won't dissect like I normally do because it's a repeat of his previous rants put together. You can just laugh because tomorrow he becomes forever convicted and sentenced, whether his appeals work or not.
