The conservative Supreme Court has surprisingly chosen not to help out their buddy Donald Trump for once.
On Monday, the high court declined to postpone Trump’s hush-money trial sentencing, after Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey tried to sue the state of New York to delay the legal proceedings. Bailey also sought to remove Trump’s gag order on claims that it violated the First Amendment rights of voters who could not hear the former president and convicted felon speak.
The case was a long-shot effort, but still, it is surprising given the Supreme Court’s decision to grant Trump near total immunity last month. The Supreme Court did not provide comment on their ruling.
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on September 18. The former president’s gag order will also remain in place through his sentencing.
“Allowing Missouri to file this suit for such relief against New York would permit an extraordinary and dangerous end-run around former President Trump’s ongoing state court proceedings,” New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote in her brief.
Though the case by Bailey seemed unlikely to succeed, if the Supreme Court had ruled in Trump’s favor, it could have presented frightening ripple effects for a state to intervene in pending criminal cases in other states.
Bailey of Missouri has called the New York trial a “political witch hunt” that was “replete with legal error from the beginning.” In a statement on X on Monday, he declared he would fight on “against [Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s] DOJ for coordinating the illicit prosecutions against President Trump.”
This story has been updated.
