WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to call off Friday's sentencing in his hush money case in New York.
Trump's lawyers turned to the nation's highest court on Wednesday after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump's trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has denied wrongdoing.
Prosecutors were expected to file a response by Thursday morning.
Trump's team sought an immediate stay of the scheduled sentencing, saying it would wrongly restrict him as he prepares to take office. While Merchan has indicated he will not impose jail time, fines or probation, Trump's lawyers argued a felony conviction would still have intolerable side effects.
The sentencing should be delayed as he appeals the conviction to “prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government," they argued.
The emergency motion is from lawyers John Sauer, Trump’s pick for solicitor general, who represents the government before the high court, and Todd Blanche, in line to be the second-ranking official at the Justice Department.
They also pointed to the Supreme Court ruling giving Trump and other presidents broad immunity from prosecutions over their actions in office, saying it supports their argument that his New York conviction should be overturned.
Their filing said the New York trial court “lacks authority to impose sentence and judgment on President Trump — or conduct any further criminal proceedings against him— until the resolution of his underlying appeal raising substantial claims of Presidential immunity, including by review in this Court if necessary.”
The Republican president-elect's spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in a statement that the case was politically motivated and should be dismissed.
Trump's lawyers also asked New York's highest court for an emergency stay to halt all proceedings Wednesday afternoon, urging quick action to avoid the threat of disrupting the presidential transition.
In a filing that largely echoed their Supreme Court arguments, the attorneys charged that Merchan and the state’s mid-level appellate court both “erroneously failed” to stop the sentencing, arguing that the constitution requires an automatic pause as they appeal the judge’s ruling upholding the verdict.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, meanwhile, said it will respond in court papers. The emergency motion was submitted to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who hears appeals from New York.
Trump's convictions arose from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.
Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. He denies it.
The Supreme Court's immunity opinion came in a separate election interference case against him, but Trump’s lawyers say it means some of the evidence used against him in his hush money trial should have been shielded by presidential immunity. That includes testimony from some White House aides and social media posts made while he was in office.
Merchan has disagreed, finding they would qualify as personal business. The Supreme Court's immunity decision was largely about official acts of presidents while in office.
FILE - Judge Juan M. Merchan sits for a portrait in his chambers in New York, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
Todd Blanche, attorney for President-elect Donald Trump departs court, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Former President Donald Trump waits for the start of proceedings in Manhattan criminal court, April 23, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, Pool, File)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli soldiers recovered the body of a 53-year-old hostage in an underground tunnel in southern Gaza, the military said Wednesday, and the army was determining if another set of remains belongs to the man's son.
The discovery of Yosef AlZayadni's body comes as Israel and Hamas are considering a ceasefire deal that would free the remaining hostages and halt the fighting in Gaza. Israel says about a third of the remaining 100 hostages have died, but believes as many as half could be dead.
Yosef and his son Hamzah AlZayadni were thought to still be alive before Wednesday’s announcement, and news about their fate could ramp up pressure on Israel to move forward with a deal.
The military said it found evidence in the tunnel that raised “serious concerns” for the life of Hamzah AlZayadni, 23, suggesting he may have died in captivity. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, said the circumstances behind Yosef AlZayadni's death were being investigated.
AlZayadni and three of his children were among 250 hostages taken captive after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people.
AlZayadni had a total of 19 children and had worked for 17 years at the dairy farm of a kibbutz that was among the communities attacked, said the Hostages Families Forum, a group representing the relatives of captives. AlZayadni’s teenage children, Bilal and Aisha, were released along with about 100 hostages in a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023.
The bodies of around three dozen hostages have been recovered in Gaza and eight hostages have been rescued by the army.
The Hostages Families Forum said the ceasefire deal being negotiated “comes far too late for Yosef — who was taken alive and should have returned the same way.”
“Every day in captivity poses an immediate mortal danger to the hostages,” the group said in a statement. The deaths of previous high-profile hostages have sparked large protests in Israel calling for a deal.
Yosef AlZayadni's name appeared on a list of 34 hostages shared by a Hamas official with The Associated Press earlier this week, who the militant group said were slated for release. Israel said this was a list it had submitted to mediators last July, and that it has received nothing from Hamas.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas is “very close” and he hopes “we can get it over the line” before handing over U.S. diplomacy to President-elect Donald Trump’s administration later this month.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed sorrow at the news of AlZayadni's death, and said in a statement he had “hoped and worked to bring back the four members of the family from Hamas captivity.” Defense Minister Israel Katz initially said the bodies of both Yosef and Hamzah AlZayadni had been recovered, but the military said the some of the remains were not yet identified.
The AlZayadni family are members of the Bedouin community, part of Israel’s Palestinian minority who have Israeli citizenship. The traditionally nomadic community is particularly impoverished in Israel and has suffered from neglect and marginalization. Palestinians make up some 20% of Israel’s 10 million population, and millions more live in Gaza and under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank.
Eight members of Israel’s Bedouin minority were abducted in the October 2023 attacks.
“We expected to bring them back alive,” said Talal Alkernawi, mayor of the city of Rahat where the men were from. “Instead of returning them alive to their families, to raise their children, we receive them dead.”
Many families fear their loved ones' fate is at risk as long as the war in Gaza rages on. Israeli forces are pressing their air and ground war against Hamas, and Palestinian health officials said Israeli airstrikes killed at least nine people in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including three infants — among them a 1-week-old — and two women. Israel’s military says it only targets militants, accusing them of hiding among civilians.
The war has killed over 45,800 Palestinians, according to the territory's Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters, but says women and children make up over half the fatalities. The military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Israel has destroyed vast areas of the impoverished territory and displaced some 90% of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
The fighting has also spilled over into the broader Middle East, including a war between Israel and Hezbollah now contained by a fragile ceasefire, and direct conflict between Israel and Iran.
Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have targeted shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year and recently ramped up missile attacks on Israel, saying they seek end to the war in Gaza. And on Wednesday, the U.S. military said it carried out a wave of strikes against underground arms facilities of the Houthi rebels.
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Israeli military vehicles move inside the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A Palestinian looks at a damaged residential building following an overnight Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mourners transport the bodies of their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, during their funeral in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from Sderot, southern Israel, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Gazelles graze on a field in southern Israel on the border with Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
An electronic billboard beams an image of President-elect Donald Trump and references his threat to unleash hell if hostages held in Gaza are not freed until his inauguration later this month. in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza hold photos of their loved ones during a protest calling for their return, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Destroyed buildings stand inside the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
