The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump's last-minute bid to stay his sentencing Friday in his criminal money laundering case.
The president-elect had called on the high court to consider whether he was entitled to an automatic reprieve, but the justices rejected the request 5-4.
Trump was found guilty of falsifying records to conceal refunds of a $130,000 secret payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels as legal expenses in 2016.
Judge Juan Murchan, who is overseeing the case, indicated in a recent ruling that he would not consider prison for Trump.
Three lower New York courts rejected Trump's bid for a delay before the Supreme Court made a final decision Thursday night to let the sentencing proceed as scheduled.
The justices rejected Trump's petition because they believed his concerns could be addressed on appeal.
They also wrote that the burden of the presence of the sentence was “negligible”.
Trump's lawyers also asked the Supreme Court to consider whether presidents-elect have immunity from prosecution.
Manhattan prosecutors urged the Supreme Court to reject Trump's petition, arguing that there was a “compelling public interest” in staying the sentence and that there was “no basis for such interference.”
After the jury's guilty verdict in May 2024. Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced in July, but his lawyers successfully persuaded Judge Murchan to delay sentencing on three separate occasions.
Last week, Judge Murchan announced that the sentence would be vacated on January 10, just days before Trump is sworn in again as president.
The days since have seen multiple appeals and lawsuits from Trump's lawyers trying to prevent the verdict.
But in quick succession, New York appeals courts rejected the bids.
Finally, on Wednesday, Trump's lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene.
The court should stay the proceedings “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government,” they wrote.
The bench's conservative 6-3 majority handed Trump a major victory last year when it ruled that US presidents are immune from prosecution for “official acts” done in office.
That ruling dismissed a federal prosecution against Trump on charges that he illegally interfered in the outcome of the 2020 election, which he has denied and pleaded not guilty to.
But since his re-election, Trump's lawyers have tried to convince a number of judges that the protection of presidential immunity should apply to the president-elect in this Manhattan criminal case.
Manhattan prosecutors argued in their own brief to the Supreme Court that Trump's “claim for extraordinary immunity is not supported by any decision of any court.”
“It is an axiom that there is only one president at a time,” the prosecutors wrote.
Separately, a group of former government officials and legal scholars filed an amicus brief — effectively a letter of support — to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to reject Trump's “attempt to avoid accountability.”