NEW YORK – New York’s highest court on Thursday declined to block Donald Trump’s upcoming sentencing in his hush money case, leaving the US Supreme Court as the president-elect’s likely last option to prevent the hearing from taking place Friday. One judge of the New York Court of Appeals issued a brief order declining to grant a hearing to Trump’s legal team.

Trump has asked the Supreme Court to call off Friday’s sentencing. His lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court 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.

In a filing to the top New York court, Trump’s attorneys had said 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 and that the sentencing would disrupt the Republican’s presidential transition as he prepares to return to the White House on January 20.

Prosecutors pushed back, saying there’s no reason for the high court to take the “extraordinary step” of entering a state case to halt a sentencing that’s been delayed at Trump’s request. (Jamaica-Gleaner)

Photo: President-elect Donald Trump talks to reporters after a meeting with Republican leadership at the Capitol. (AP)