Trump clings to SCOTUS: New York's highest appellate court upholds Stormy Daniels sentencing date

New York's highest appeals court has upheld the lower court's decision, setting the date for Donald Trump's sentencing this Friday, January 10.

The state's highest appeals court, the last institution in New York that could rule in Trump’s favor, rejected the appeal filed by the president-elect. This came after the first appeals court accepted Judge Merchan’s proposal to impose the sentence this week.

Judge Merchan's sentence, which he stated would be the lightest possible punishment, will address the 34 charges related to document falsification for which Trump was found guilty in the Stormy Daniels case.

After this ruling, Donald Trump only has the U.S. Supreme Court left to turn to. It was reported Wednesday that the president-elect's legal team has filed an appeal with SCOTUS to block the decision of the New York court.

In the appeal filed with New York's highest court, Trump’s lawyers argued that both Judge Merchan and the state’s mid-level appeals court "wrongly failed" to halt the ruling. They contended that the Constitution mandates an automatic pause during an appeal and that the ruling would disrupt the presidential transition for the Republican, who is preparing to return to the White House on January 20.

Alongside the New York ruling, Trump also faces the release of special prosecutor Jack Smith's full reports for the election meddling cases and the classified Mar-a-Lago documents.

This Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced plans to release the full report on the election meddling case. However, in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, Judge Aileen Cannon ruled in favor of a defense request and ordered that the full report not be released.