Judge denies Trump's request to delay sentencing in business fraud case

In a two-page ruling Monday afternoon, acting New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan denied President-elect Donald Trump’s request to postpone a Friday sentencing hearing in his business fraud case until an appeals process can play out. Merchan decided last week that a hearing would take place on Jan. 10 to determine Trump’s sentence after a Manhattan jury found him guilty of falsifying business records last year. 

Why did Trump ask for the hearing to be taken off the calendar? The president-elect’s lawyers said they would appeal a decision Merchan made denying their motion to dismiss the indictment against Trump and vacate the jury’s verdict against him. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Trump v. United States that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for official acts related to their time in office. Trump’s lawyers argued that he should not have been indicted based on this principle. His lawyers also argued that certain evidence should have been excluded at trial for the same reason.

What did the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have to say? Prosecutors argued that presidential immunity does not extend to a president-elect. During the trial, they also argued that the acts described in the indictment, and for which Trump was convicted, were not official acts related to his presidential duties.

What did the judge say in his Monday ruling? Merchan characterized Trump’s arguments in his motion to postpone the sentencing as repetitive and said they'd already been rejected by previous rulings. He also found that the legal precedent and authorities cited in the motion were not comparable to the facts in this case.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about how Trump recently lost an appeal he made after a jury found him liable for sexual abuse.