Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Let's get to legal analyst June Grosso, host of Bloomberg Law. June,
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's been busy for you in the last
Speaker 2: half hour trying to get up to speed. How was
Speaker 2: this decision divided? In what way did the court come down?
Speaker 1: Well, that was the surprise of this decision that it
Speaker 1: was a five to four decision. So the three most
Speaker 1: conservative justice is Thomas Alito, Gorsich, and Justice Kavanaugh, who
Speaker 1: tends to be in the middle somewhere, would have granted
Speaker 1: this application. So it was the three liberal justices, the
Speaker 1: Chief Justice and Justice Amy Cony Barrett, who denied it.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of surprising because when you look at
Speaker 1: Trump's arguments, what he was asking for is to be
Speaker 1: treated differently from any criminal descendant, without really providing any
Speaker 1: good explanations for why that should happen. He wanted them
Speaker 1: to basically extend that controversy ruling giving presidents broad immunity
Speaker 1: from criminal prosecution for official acts. He wanted them to
Speaker 1: extend that to a president elect, and they refused to do. So.
Speaker 1: What they said was that the issues that he's raising
Speaker 1: can be raised on appeal in the New York case.
Speaker 1: And also he had claimed that his responsibilities as president
Speaker 1: elect during the transition would be burdened by his appearing
Speaker 1: at this sentencing, and they said that his responsibilities were
Speaker 1: not were relatively insubstantial in this sentencing. So they just
Speaker 1: basically said no way.
Speaker 2: So in terms of prosecutors pushing back, what was the
Speaker 2: argument essentially, Well.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor said that one of the things they said
Speaker 1: was that this was a jury verdict, and under our system,
Speaker 1: we have to really treasure jury verdicts. We have to
Speaker 1: respect jury verdicts, and you can't just throw out a
Speaker 1: jury verdict. They also attacked his arguments that this was
Speaker 1: going to be some kind of burden on his responsibilities
Speaker 1: in the transition. And I think what was smart here
Speaker 1: is that Judge mur Sean and a lot of people,
Speaker 1: when he first came out and said I'm not going
Speaker 1: to give him any sentence, said well, what's the point
Speaker 1: of the sentencing? Then, well, the point is that now
Speaker 1: Trump couldn't say that, oh, the judge may sentence me
Speaker 1: to time, or the judge may sentence me to probation,
Speaker 1: or who knows what, because the judge had said I'm
Speaker 1: not going to sentence you to anything. I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you what's called an unconditional discharge. And basically what
Speaker 1: this is is a symbolic sentencing, so that Trump is now, yes,
Speaker 1: a convicted felon, and that felony is on the books
Speaker 1: in New York. And I think the problem for Trump
Speaker 1: was always the stigma of being, you know, the first
Speaker 1: felon to be sworn in as president of the United States.
Speaker 1: So I think that's it's the stigma for him more
Speaker 1: than anything else, because there's no other impact on him
Speaker 1: at all. There won't be probation, there won't be even
Speaker 1: a fine. It'll just be the judge saying, you know,
Speaker 1: this is the verdict and you're convicted, and then it's over.
Speaker 2: So is this over? You can can the state appellate
Speaker 2: courts in New York kind of change the outcome here
Speaker 2: in any way?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because he is still and as the justice is said,
Speaker 1: he can go forward with the appeal as a person
Speaker 1: normally would go forward. Normally, you wait for the sentencing,
Speaker 1: you wait for the conviction comes, then the sentencing, and
Speaker 1: then you can start the appellate process through the New
Speaker 1: York Appellate courts. Well, Trump jumped all that. You know,
Speaker 1: he wanted to go right ahead and go to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. And I mean normally most people don't go
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court, and normally most people take it
Speaker 1: through the appellate process. So that's what he's going to do. Now,
Speaker 1: after the the the judge does the sentencing, then the
Speaker 1: appeal will take place. He'll have thirty days to file
Speaker 1: to say that he's filing for appeal, and he can
Speaker 1: raise all these issues in the appeal. But remember too
Speaker 1: that some of these issues that were raised in New
Speaker 1: York the Appellate Court and the Court of Appeals, which
Speaker 1: is New York's highest court, rejected So but you know
Speaker 1: he'll raise them again. And I'm sure this case is
Speaker 1: going to go on for some time. I mean, appeals
Speaker 1: can take years.
Speaker 2: I have to ask you about the report that Trump
Speaker 2: had a phone call with Samuel Alito, one of the
Speaker 2: justices on the court. In the case of whether or
Speaker 2: not this was in any way related, we don't know that.
Speaker 2: Alito did say he was giving a former law clerk
Speaker 2: a recommendation for a role in the new administration. Did
Speaker 2: how did that feel to you when you got that news.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, Alito said that they did not talk
Speaker 1: about anything having to do with Trump or his cases.
Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing ethically wrong with that, I think,
Speaker 1: as long as he didn't discuss any cases before the court.
Speaker 1: But it does sort of sit. It just sits as
Speaker 1: something that it appears to be something that looked it's
Speaker 1: like an ethical violation, even though it's not. It appears
Speaker 1: to be something that perhaps is. You know, it's unsettling
Speaker 1: sort of to have a justice of the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: talking to the president hours before the president elect excuse me,
Speaker 1: hours before the president elects lawyers file papers with the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. It doesn't look good. But as far as
Speaker 1: you know, whether anything went on, who knows, and Alito
Speaker 1: said that different it's didn't And that's the way it's
Speaker 1: going to stay. This is not going to go any further.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen ethical violations, allegations of ethical violations,
Speaker 1: but the Supreme Court go up through the federal judiciary
Speaker 1: and they refuse to go forward. So this is certainly
Speaker 1: nothing's going to happen with the sets for sure.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned he's now a convicted felon, and sentencing
Speaker 2: will happen tomorrow morning at nine thirty am, a Wall
Speaker 2: Street time. And then on the twentieth, obviously, the President
Speaker 2: elect will take the oath of office. That's historic in
Speaker 2: and of itself because never has the United States had
Speaker 2: a sitting president who has been a convicted felon in
Speaker 2: the legal community. Are they talking about retaliation in any way?
Speaker 2: Do you think as the result of this, you.
Speaker 1: Mean retaliation for the Manhattan district attorneys or Trump has
Speaker 1: been talking about retaliation against the Manhattan District attorney since
Speaker 1: the case was filed. I mean, he has been talking
Speaker 1: about this throughout. He would do press conferences, you'd come
Speaker 1: out and make statements during the trial about how unfair
Speaker 1: the the whole thing was, how you know it was
Speaker 1: a witch haunt, and how the Manhattan District Attorney had
Speaker 1: it in for him. It was all political. So that's there.
Speaker 1: But it's going to be hard to go after a
Speaker 1: sitting district attorney because he's protected in certain respects for
Speaker 1: the things that he does in office. And it'll even
Speaker 1: be I think even he'll get, you know, legal representation
Speaker 1: free from the States. So it's going to be more
Speaker 1: difficult than Trump makes it seem. For the Justice Department
Speaker 1: to even you know, put that case together, and certainly
Speaker 1: it's not a case that's going to you know, that's
Speaker 1: going to go forward anywhere that it will probably be
Speaker 1: dismissed right away if it's brought at all. But you know,
Speaker 1: that is what Trump has said all along that he
Speaker 1: you know, so he probably is going to look for retaliation,
Speaker 1: but I dad he'll get it. What should we be.
Speaker 2: Looking out for, in particular tomorrow morning around these sentencing
Speaker 2: the language that the judge may use in an addressing
Speaker 2: President elect Trump.
Speaker 1: I think we should put a stopwatch on how quick
Speaker 1: the sentencing is because there's really not much to be said.
Speaker 1: There's not going to be any kind of you know, appeal.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Trump is not going to Maybe Trump will
Speaker 1: say something. Actually I could be wrong. He may say
Speaker 1: something before he's sentenced, but you know, it's going to
Speaker 1: be very quick because we all know what the judge
Speaker 1: is going to say, and there's not going to be
Speaker 1: much of an argument from either side. The judge has
Speaker 1: already set this out, so I think it's going to
Speaker 1: be very quick and at most we'll see some kind
Speaker 1: of statement from Trump, who's going to be a peer
Speaker 1: by video he doesn't have the judge that he doesn't
Speaker 1: even have to come into the courtroom. That was another
Speaker 1: thing that the Supreme Court sort of I must have
Speaker 1: picked up on that this is just a brief virtual hearing.
Speaker 1: They said, it's to impose the sentence of unconditional discharge
Speaker 1: after a brief virtual hearing. So I think what you
Speaker 1: have to take away from this whole thing is that
Speaker 1: Judge wanmershawn knew what he was doing and set this
Speaker 1: up so that the case could be ended without any
Speaker 1: interference from the Supreme Court or the courts of Appeal
Speaker 1: in New York.
Speaker 2: We'll leave it there, June, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: making time to chat with us. Bloomberg Legal analyst June Grosso,
Speaker 2: host of the Bloomberg Law Show, helping us understand a
Speaker 2: little bit more about the decision on the part of
Speaker 2: the US Supreme Court to clear the way for President
Speaker 2: elect Trump's sentencing in his hush money criminal case. We
Speaker 2: are told the sentencing is set for nine thirty am tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Over four deercents, the justices rejected Trump's request to halt
Speaker 2: the New York sentencing as even though a State of
Speaker 2: the FLDS court here in New York is considering Trump's
Speaker 2: claim of a presidential immunity and as June kind of
Speaker 2: laid out there. Juan Verschan, the New York judge overseeing
Speaker 2: this case, has said he will not give Trump jail time,
Speaker 2: any fine or probation,