New York’s attorney general urged the Supreme Court on Wednesday to stay out of Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case, arguing the nation’s highest court should not grant a novel request by Missouri to pause his sentencing hearing and lift the gag order imposed on the former president in the case.
Earlier this month, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, asked the Supreme Court for permission to file a complaint against New York to pause Trump’s September sentencing hearing and lift the restrictions on his speech – arguing in part that New York was infringing on the right of Missouri voters to hear from presidential candidates.
But New York Attorney General Letitia James told the high court in a new filing that Missouri had no legal basis to turn to the justices for that type of relief, which she said “seriously undermines the integrity of the courts and risks setting a dangerous precedent that encourages a flood of similar, unmeritorious litigation.”
The type of relief sought by Missouri, James argued, can only be obtained through her state’s courts, not the Supreme Court.
“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 and the statutory limitations on this Court’s jurisdiction to review state court decisions,” she wrote.
Chiefly, James argued that Missouri lacked the legal right – known as “standing” – needed to bring its complaint against her state because the harms Bailey said his residents would face without the high court’s intervention are “speculative.”
“The potential sentence and speech restrictions may prove no obstacle to the interests of people who wish to hear from former President Trump,” James wrote, adding that the former president’s sentencing in the case has already been moved to September “and may not occur” if the judge who oversaw the trial grants Trump’s request to set aside the verdict in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling granting him partial immunity.
Missouri’s request, James argued, was nothing more than the state “impermissibly seeking to further the individual interests of former President Trump.”
A Manhattan jury convicted Trump in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records tied to hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair with Trump before the 2016 election. Trump has denied the affair.
For now, a limited gag order barring Trump from publicly speaking about prosecutors, court staff and their families remains in place at least until Trump is sentenced.
