Donald Trump sentenced to ‘unconditional discharge’ in hush money case

Though the President-elect gets an unconditional discharge, he will become the first President of the U.S. to be sentenced as a felon; Mr. Trump said the hearing had been a “despicable charade” and that he planned to appeal his conviction.

President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced on Friday (January 10, 2025) in his hush money case, but the judge declined to impose any punishment, an outcome that cements his conviction while freeing him to return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.

The punishment-free judgment marks a quiet end to an extraordinary case that for the first time put a former President and major presidential candidate in a courtroom as a criminal defendant. The case was the only one of four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan could have sentenced the 78-year-old Republican to up to four years in prison. Instead, he chose a sentence that sidestepped thorny constitutional issues by effectively ending the case but assured that Mr. Trump will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidency.

Unlike his trial in 2024, when Mr. Trump brought allies to the courthouse and addressed waiting reporters outside, the former President did not appear in person on Friday (January 10, 2025), instead making a brief virtual appearance from his home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Mr. Trump, wearing a dark suit and seated next to one of his lawyers with an American flag in the background, appeared on a video screen as he again insisted he did not commit a crime.

“It’s been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election, and, obviously, that didn’t work,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump called the case “a weaponization of government” and “an embarrassment to New York”.

After it was over, Mr. Trump said in a post on his social media network that the hearing had been a “despicable charade” and that he planned to appeal his conviction.

Mr. Trump’s sentence of an unconditional discharge, a rarity for felony convictions, caps a norm-smashing case that saw the former and future President charged with 34 felonies, put on trial for almost two months and convicted by a jury on every count. Yet, the legal detour — and sordid details aired in court of a plot to bury affair allegations — didn’t hurt him with voters, who elected him to a second term.

Judge Merchan said that like when facing any other defendant, he must consider any aggravating factors before imposing a sentence, but the legal protection that Mr. Trump will have as President “is a factor that overrides all others”.

“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” Judge Merchan said.

As the judge noted that voters had returned Mr. Trump to power, the soon-to-be-President relaxed back into his chair.

Mr. Trump spoke for about six minutes as he addressed the court by video. He said his criminal trial and conviction have “been a very terrible experience” and insisted he committed no crime.

Before Friday’s (January 10, 2025) hearing, Judge Merchan had indicated he planned the no-penalty sentence, which meant no jail time, no probation and no fines would be imposed.

Prosecutors said on Friday (January 10, 2025) that they supported a no-penalty sentence, but they chided Mr. Trump’s attacks on the legal system throughout and after the case.

“The once and future President of the United States has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said.

Rather than show remorse, Mr. Trump has “bred disdain” for the jury verdict and the criminal justice system, Mr. Steinglass said, and his calls for retaliation against those involved in the case, including calling for the judge to be disbarred, “has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has put officers of the court in harm’s way”.

As he appeared from his Mar-a-Lago home, the former President was seated with his lawyer Todd Blanche, whom he’s tapped to serve as the second-highest ranking Justice Department official in his incoming administration.

“The American voters got a chance to see and decide for themselves whether this was the kind of case that should’ve been brought. And they decided,” Mr. Blanche said. “And that’s why in 10 days President Trump is going to assume the office of the President of the United States.”

The entire hearing lasted a little more than a half an hour.

Before the hearing, a handful of Trump supporters and critics gathered outside. One group held a banner that read, “Trump is guilty”. The other held one that said, “Stop partisan conspiracy” and “Stop political witch hunt”.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges, is a Democrat.

The hush money case accused Mr. Trump of fudging his business’ records to veil a $130,000 payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She was paid, late in Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she maintains the two had a decade earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them, and he contends that his political adversaries spun up a bogus prosecution to try to damage him.

Mr. Bragg’s office said in a court filing on Monday (January 6, 2025) that Mr. Trump committed “serious offenses that caused extensive harm to the sanctity of the electoral process and to the integrity of New York’s financial marketplace”.

While the specific charges were about checks and ledgers, the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Mr. Trump’s political rise. Prosecutors said Ms. Daniels was paid off — through Mr. Trump’s personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen — as part of a wider effort to keep voters from hearing about Mr. Trump’s alleged extramarital escapades.

Mr. Trump denies the alleged encounters occurred. His lawyers said he wanted to squelch the stories to protect his family, not his campaign. And while prosecutors said Mr. Cohen’s reimbursements for paying Ms. Daniels were deceptively logged as legal expenses, Mr. Trump says that’s simply what they were.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to forestall a trial. Since his May 2024 conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, they have pulled virtually every legal lever within reach to try to get the conviction overturned, the case dismissed or at least the sentencing postponed.

The Trump attorneys have leaned heavily into assertions of presidential immunity from prosecution, and they got a boost in July 2024 from a Supreme Court decision that affords former commanders-in-chief considerable immunity.

Mr. Trump was a private citizen and Presidential candidate when Ms. Daniels was paid in 2016. He was President when the reimbursements to Mr. Cohen were made and recorded the following year.

Judge Merchan, a Democrat, repeatedly postponed the sentencing, initially set for July. But last week, he set Friday’s (January 10, 2025) date, citing a need for “finality.”

Mr. Trump’s lawyers then launched a flurry of last-minute efforts to block the sentencing. Their last hope vanished on Thursday night (January 9, 2025) with a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that declined to delay the sentencing.

Meanwhile, the other criminal cases that once loomed over Mr. Trump have ended or stalled ahead of trial.

After Mr. Trump’s election, special counsel Jack Smith closed out the federal prosecutions over Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A State-level Georgia election interference case is locked in uncertainty after prosecutor Fani Willis was removed from it.

Published - January 10, 2025 07:52 pm IST