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Left: Judge Juan Merchan poses for a picture in his chambers in New York, Thursday, March 14, 2024. Merchan is presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York (AP Photo/Seth Wenig). Right: FILE – Former President Donald Trump is escorted to a courtroom, April 4, 2023, in New York (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File).
Donald Trump will become the first U.S. president to be inaugurated as a convicted felon when he is sworn into office in 10 days after a judge in New York sentenced him to an “unconditional discharge” in the criminal hush-money case over funds paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2020 election.
The sentence, handed down Friday by Acting New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, effectively means that Trump will not suffer any adverse legal consequences, but his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records still stand.
Trump appeared virtually for the proceedings in Manhattan, which he had fought tooth and nail to stop from taking place. The legal wrangling between the president-elect and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office came to a head on Thursday evening when the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to reject Trump’s request that the sentencing hearing be delayed indefinitely.
Earlier this week, Merchan, two New York appellate courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court all rejected Trump’s controversial and novel legal theory of “president-elect immunity.” Trump’s attorneys argued that the immunity from prosecution granted to a sitting president also extends to shield a president-elect from prosecution “during the brief but crucial period of Presidential transition, while he engages in the extraordinarily demanding task of preparing to assume the Executive power of the United States.”
Merchan addressed that immunity and its effect on the court’s decision making during the sentencing hearing.
“It’s the office of the president that bestows those far-reaching protections to the officeholder and it was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided you should once again receive the benefits of those protections which include, among other things, the supremacy clause and presidential immunity,” the judge said. “It is through that lens and that reality, that this court must determine a lawful sentence. After careful analysis and obedience to governing mandates and pursuant to the rule of law, this court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction without encroaching upon the highest office in the land is an unconditional discharge.”
But Merchan also said that in spite of the “extraordinary breadth” of those protections, they are not all-encompassing.
“[O]ne power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” Merchan said. “It is clear from legal precedent, which until July 1 was scarce, that Donald Trump the ordinary citizen and Donald Trump the criminal defendant, would not be entitled to such considerable protections. I’m referring to protections that are extended well beyond the average defendant who winds their way through the criminal justice system each day. No. Ordinary citizens do not receive those legal protections.”
Given a chance to address the court, Trump stayed true to form, using the opportunity to once again castigate those involved in his prosecution, referring to the case against him as a “political witch hunt” while saying the ordeal had been “a very terrible experience.”
“I am totally innocent. I did nothing wrong,” Trump bemoaned. “I got indicted for calling a legal expense a legal expense.”
Merchan concluded the hearing by wishing Trump “Godspeed” as he begins his second term in office.
