Trump bid to ax sentencing denied by New York's highest court, leaving Supreme Court as last hope

New York's highest court on Thursday rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s bid to halt his sentencing Friday, and prosecutors urged the U.S. Supreme Court to do the same.

In a brief letter to Trump's attorney Todd Blanche, the chief clerk for the New York Court of Appeals said his proposed order to stay Trump's sentencing had been reviewed by a judge "who declined to sign the order."

The denial was the third such refusal for Trump this week. He still has a motion to block the proceeding pending in the Supreme Court.

In a filing Thursday, prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office urged the conservative high court, which includes three Trump-appointed justices, to let the proceeding move forward.

Trump wants "to take the extraordinary step of intervening in a pending state criminal trial to prevent the scheduled sentencing from taking place—before final judgment has been entered by the trial court, and before any direct appellate review of defendant’s conviction. There is no basis for such intervention," the DA's filing said.

Trump responded in a filing Thursday night that the high court court has the authority to act and that the DA was downplaying "the importance of the Presidential transition and the need for an energetic executive." 

In a filing Wednesday, Trump's attorneys argued the Supreme Court needed to stop his sentencing on felony falsifying business records charges from proceeding in order "to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government.”

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They argue that the case should not go forward because Trump's actions were protected by presidential immunity since he was president at the time of the reimbursement payments in question.

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The DA's office maintains Trump's conduct in the case — where he was charged with causing records to be falsified in order to cover up his personal attorney's hush money payment to a porn star in the closing days of the 2016 presidential election — had to do with "unofficial acts" that were not covered by presidential immunity.

Trump had denied actress Stormy Daniels' account of the sexual encounter the two had. He's also sought to delay the sentencing by arguing it should not proceed because he's already protected by presidential immunity given his status as president-elect.

The judge presiding over the case, Juan Merchan, denied his request for a stay on Monday, and the New York state Appellate Division, a mid-level appeals court, denied Trump's bid to halt the sentencing on Tuesday.

Merchan wrote in a decision last week that he intends to sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge, a type of sentence that would uphold the conviction but would not carry other penalties.