Trump says he respects Supreme Court’s decision to deny his request to stop sentencing, vows to appeal

President-elect Donald Trump said he respects the Supreme Court’s decision to deny his request to stop his sentencing in New York v. Trump from moving forward, but said Thursday night he will appeal, while stressing that ‘lawfare’ has been an ‘attack on the Republican Party.’ 

Trump’s comments came just moments after the Supreme Court denied Trump’s emergency petition to block his sentencing from taking place on Friday, Jan. 10. The sentencing was scheduled by New York Judge Juan Merchan. 

Merchan, last week, said he would not sentence the president-elect to prison, but rather issue a sentence of an ‘unconditional discharge,’ which means there would be no punishment imposed. 

‘I’m the first president and probably one of the first candidates in history that’s under attack with a gag order where I’m not allowed to speak about something,’ Trump said during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago Thursday night with Republican governors. ‘This is a long way from finished and I respect the court’s opinion.’ 

Trump said he thought the court’s ruling was a ‘very good opinion for us,’ noting that the justices ‘invited the appeal.’ 

‘We’ll see how it all works out,’ he said. ‘I think it’s going to work out well.’ 

But Trump reflected on the ‘lawfare’ that he has been victim of, saying that it ‘was an attack on the Republican Party.’ 

‘This was an attack on the Republican candidate who just won an election by record numbers—the highest number of Republican votes by far ever gotten, and we won all the swing states, we won the popular vote by millions of people,’ he said. ‘They tried to stop that from happening—they tried to stop this election from happening or to bloody somebody up so badly they couldn’t win.’ 

Trump said that ‘the people got it and we won by the largest number.’ 

Trump filed an emergency petition to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday in an effort to prevent his Jan. 10 sentencing, scheduled by Judge Juan Merchan, from taking place. 

‘The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is denied for, inter alia, the following reasons. First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump’s state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal,’ the order states. 

‘Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of unconditional discharge’ after a brief virtual hearing,’ the court ruled. 

The order also noted that ‘Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh would grant the application.’ 

Trump needed five votes in order to have his request granted. The note on the order suggests Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Katanji Brown Jackson. 

Trump’s sentencing is now expected to move forward, with the president-elect expected to appear virtually for the proceeding, scheduled for 9:30 am Friday. 

Merchan set Trump’s sentencing in New York v. Trump for Jan. 10 after a jury found the now-president-elect guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree, stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and has appealed the ruling but was rejected last week by Merchan. 

Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on Jan. 20. 

Trump has maintained his innocence in the case and repeatedly railed against it as an example of ‘lawfare’ promoted by Democrats in an effort to hurt his election efforts ahead of November.