Former President Donald Trump is asking a federal appeals court in New York to stay his sentencing in his business records conviction until it hears legal arguments in full over whether the case should be moved to federal court.
Sentencing in the case could "lead to incarceration or other unacceptable liberty restrictions being imposed on the leading candidate in the forthcoming presidential election," the GOP nominee's attorneys argue in their filing, reports Newsweek on Friday.
New York federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein has rejected Trump's push to transfer the case twice.
A Manhattan jury in May convicted Trump on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with money payments made to former adult movie actress Stormy Daniels, who said she had a sexual liaison with him. He has denied her claims and all wrongdoing and says the charges are part of an attempt to interfere with his bid to return to the White House.
New York Superior Court Judge Juan Merchan has scheduled Trump to be sentenced on Sept. 18. The former president argues in his federal appeals filing that he should not be imprisoned before the November election.
Trump's attorney, Emil Bove, said in his filing that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has given "short shrift to the irreparable harm that would result" if Trump is sentenced "as if this appeal does not exist and there is no prospect of future federal litigation."
The sentencing would also negate the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which requires that federal law has precedence over state laws, said Bove.
The filing also criticizes Hellerstein for remanding the case to Merchan. Bove added that Trump has demonstrated that an administrative stay is needed "to maintain the status quo during this appeal of the district court's deeply flawed Remand Order."
Bragg early Thursday urged the federal court to reject Trump's stay the sentencing, commenting that Hellerstein did not order that the case be remanded, but instead that he denied Trump's requests to move the case.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.