Washington DC [US], January 10 : The Supreme Court on Thursday denied US President-elect Donald Trump's bid to halt criminal proceedings in his New York hush money case, allowing a sentencing hearing scheduled for Friday to proceed, according to a report by NBC News.
In a 5-4 decision, with four conservative justices dissenting, the conservative-majority court reversed its stance after granting Trump two significant victories last year. Trump will return back to the White House on January 20.
The brief unsigned order said the issues Trump wants to raise "can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal." The burden sentencing imposes on Trump is "relatively insubstantial," the court added, because he is not going to receive any prison time, NBC reported.
Following the Supreme Court's decision to allow the sentencing hearing in his New York hush money case to proceed, Trump criticised the ruling and the judicial process involved. He denounced the case as politically motivated and expressed confidence that justice will prevail.
Trump in a post on social media platform Truth Social said, "I appreciate the time and effort of the United States Supreme Court in trying to remedy the great injustice done to me by the highly conflicted "Acting Justice," who should not have been allowed to try this case. Every legal scholar stated, unequivocally, that this is a case that should never have been brought. There was no case against me. In other words, I am innocent of all of the Judge's made up, fake charges. This was nothing other than weaponization of our justice system against a political opponent."
He added, "It's called lawfare, and nothing like this has ever happened in the United States of America, and it should never be allowed to happen again. To this day, this highly political and corrupt Judge has put a gag order on me, which takes away my First Amendment right to speak about very important aspects of the case. For the sake and sanctity of the Presidency, I will be appealing this case, and am confident that justice will prevail."
Notably, Trump had requested the Supreme Court to pause his sentencing in the hush money case, scheduled for Janaury 10, CNN reported.
Trump's attorneys argued that delaying the sentencing is necessary "to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government."
Trump was convicted in May 2023, of falsifying records to conceal payments to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen, who reimbursed USD 130,000 hush money payment made to an adult-film star Stormy Daniels for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump before the 2016 election. Trump has denied the affair.
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