Trump asks US supreme court to halt sentencing in New York criminal case

Donald Trump has asked the US supreme court to pause criminal proceedings in his New York hush-money case, according to a filing released on Wednesday.

This follows a New York appeals court denying his bid to halt sentencing on Friday in his hush-money case, Reuters reported, in which he became a felon last spring.

The president-elect on Monday lost an attempt to put off his sentencing on Friday for his criminal conviction stemming from money paid to an adult film star to silence her about an alleged affair with Trump years ago.

In a filing released on Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers asked the nation’s top court to immediately order a stay in the case, as he sought an appeal to resolve questions of presidential immunity following an earlier supreme court ruling.

That appeal effort could reach the supreme court as well, his lawyers noted. They also urged the court to issue a temporary “administrative stay” while it considers the request for a broader pause, the filing said.

Trump won another term in the White House and is set to take office on 20 January. He has who denied any wrongdoing but was convicted by a jury last May of a plot to influence the 2016 presidential election.

The hush-money case made Trump the first US president, sitting or former, to be charged with a crime and also the first to be convicted. Since the verdict, his lawyers have made two unsuccessful attempts to have the case tossed.

Reuters contributed reporting