This is John Batchel, conversation with colleague Andrew McCarthy of National Review Online,

about the Bragg prosecution in Manhattan and Judge Marchand

and his sentencing anticipated on Friday the 10th of January.

And he explains the intricacies of the law here.

As I understand it, Mr. Trump has X number of days to win an appeal presence in order to stay the judge going forward with the sentencing.

Why this is all rhetorically significant is that until Mr. Trump is sentenced, he is not a convicted felon, as many have been saying incorrectly.

He is not convicted until he's sentenced.

And he explains the rest of this very, very intricate plan by the judge and now the response by the Trump team.

More of this tonight. You know, six weeks ago, Trump would have had plenty of time to get an appeals

court, probably the New York Appellate Division First Department, which hears appeals from Manhattan.

He would have had plenty of time to engage them and try to get them to take the case and order Judge

Merchant to stay the sentencing until they could litigate the claims that Trump is making regarding immunity.

Instead, what Murchin did was he waited to, I think, what was probably as little time as he thought he could give Trump under the circumstances.

And now Trump is desperately trying to get the appellate division to intervene and also asking

Merchant to stay the sentencing while his appeal proceeds.

But he's got to depend on the appellate division to say, okay, we'll take the case

and the sentencing should be stayed.

And you can ask, but there's nothing that requires the court to act on that.