The Supreme Court ruled against President-elect Donald Trump's motion to delay the sentencing in his New York business records case because it does not interfere with state cases until they are made final, retired Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Friday.
"They don't want to be in the business of micromanaging a state case," the senior judicial analyst told Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "There's a federal statute called the Anti-Injunction Act, which prevents federal courts from interfering with state prosecutions."
The Supreme Court split by 5-4 against Trump, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett ruling on the side of the three liberal justices in a decision coming a day after New York's highest court also would not delay Trump's sentencing, scheduled for Friday.
Judge Juan Merchan in Manhattan has indicated he will not give Trump jail time, fines, or probation in the case.
Napolitano explained that the high court ruled that the case should proceed to its endpoint, and then, after the sentencing, Trump can file his appeals.
"Then he can appeal it to the highest court in New York, called the Court of Appeals," followed by an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if the New York court rules against him, said Napolitano.
"But getting the Supreme Court involved while it's still in a trial court, they don't do that," he added.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 payment his former attorney, Michael Cohen, paid to adult actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. He has continued to rail against the case and convictions, calling them politically motivated and denying having an affair with Daniels.
The president-elect, meanwhile, will get to say his piece before Merchan sentences him, said Napolitano.
"The defendant gets to address the judge before he imposes sentencing," he said. "The gag order is gone. The defendant, the president-elect, the once and future president, gets to say whatever he wants for however long he wants."
Friday's sentencing will mark a day that is "unlike any day in American history" with the sentencing of a president-elect, even though Trump won't likely get jail time or a fine, said Napolitano.
But in this case, Trump will be told that he's free to go but he is a convicted felon, said Napolitano.
"'The case is over. There's no jail time. There's no probation, there's no fine,'" he said Merchan will tell Trump. "'There are no conditions. Good luck to you.'"
The Supreme Court will also hear on Friday the case filed to fight the ban of TikTok, with it and its owner ByteDance making a free speech argument.
Napolitano said he thinks the court will "come down on the side of free speech, and they'll invalidate the statute."
Congress has called for a ban on claims that the Chinese government uses TikTok, an app for short videos, to spy on users.
"TikTok, in my view, has demonstrated that this is just a political opinion of Congress," said Napolitano. "There's no scientific basis for it. Congress is worried about somebody else spying on people. Who spies on more people than anybody else in the country? The federal government itself."
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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.
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