Judge sentences Trump for case in NY, but does not impose any sentence

NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump was formally sentenced Friday in New York in the hush money case, but the judge declined to impose a sentence. The result cements Trump’s conviction while freeing him to return to the White House without the threat of a prison sentence or financial penalty.

Trump’s sentencing of unconditional release marks a peaceful end to an extraordinary case that for the first time brought a former president and a major presidential candidate before a court as a defendant. The case was the only one of four criminal indictments to go to trial and possibly the only one that will.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchán could have sentenced the 78-year-old Republican to up to four years in prison. Instead, he chose a ruling that sidestepped thorny constitutional questions by effectively ending the case but ensured that Trump will become the first person convicted of a serious crime to assume the presidency.

Unlike his trial last year, when Trump brought his allies to the courthouse and addressed reporters waiting outside the courthouse, the former president did not appear in person on Friday, instead making a brief virtual appearance from his home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump, dressed in a dark suit and sitting next to one of his lawyers with an American flag in the background, appeared on a video screen insisting, once again, that he committed no crime.

“It has 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,” Trump said.

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

The ruling caps a momentous case in which the former and future president was accused of 34 serious crimes, tried for almost two months and convicted on all charges. However, the legal detour — and the sordid details aired in court about a plot to cover up accusations of infidelity — did not hurt him with voters, who elected him to a second term.

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

“Despite the extraordinary breadth of these protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” Merchán stressed.

As the judge pointed out that voters had returned Trump to power, the future president leaned back in his chair.

Trump spoke for about six minutes while addressing the court via video. He said his criminal trial and conviction had “been a very terrible experience” and insisted he committed no crime.

Before Friday’s hearing, Merchán had indicated that he planned the sentence without penalty, which meant that no prison sentences, probation or fines would be imposed.

Prosecutors said Friday they supported a no-sentence sentence but criticized Trump’s attacks on the legal system during and after the case.

“He who once was and will again be president of the United States has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine his legitimacy,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass.

Instead of showing contrition, Trump has “engendered disdain” for the jury verdict and the criminal justice system, Steinglass added, and his calls for retaliation against those involved in the case, including calling for the judge to be disbarred. “have caused lasting damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and endangered court officials.”

Appearing from his home in Mar-a-Lago, the former president was sitting with his attorney Todd Blanche, whom he has tapped to serve as the Justice Department’s second-highest-ranking official in his next administration.

“American voters had the opportunity to see and decide for themselves whether this was the type of case that should have been brought. And they decided,” Blanche said. “And that is why in 10 days President Trump will be sworn in as president of the United States.”

The entire hearing lasted just over half an hour.

Trump was then expected to get back to the business of planning his new administration and hosting conservative House Republicans to discuss GOP priorities.

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

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

The case accused Trump of manipulating his company records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels. She was paid, at the end of Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to publicly reveal a sexual encounter she claims they had a decade earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them, and maintains that his political opponents made up a false accusation to try to harm him.

Bragg’s prosecutor’s office said in a court filing Monday that Trump committed “serious crimes that caused extensive harm to the sanctity of the electoral process and the integrity of the New York financial market.”

While the charges were specifically about checks and ledgers, the underlying allegations were sordid and deeply intertwined with Trump’s political rise. Prosecutors said Daniels was paid — through Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen — as part of a broader effort to prevent voters from hearing about Trump’s alleged extramarital affairs.

Trump denies that the alleged meetings occurred. His lawyers said he wanted to stifle the revelations to protect his family, not his campaign. And although prosecutors claimed that Cohen’s reimbursements for paying Daniels were misleadingly recorded as legal expenses, Trump asserts that is simply what they were.

Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to avoid a trial. Since his conviction in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records, they have used virtually every legal lever at their disposal to try to overturn the conviction, dismiss the case or at least postpone sentencing.

Trump’s lawyers have long pressed claims of presidential immunity from prosecution, and got a boost in July from a Supreme Court decision granting former commanders in chief considerable immunity.

Trump was a private citizen and presidential candidate when Daniels was paid in 2016. He was president when the repayments to Cohen were made and recorded the following year.

Merchán, a Democrat, repeatedly postponed sentencing, initially scheduled for July. But last week, he set the date for Friday, citing the need for “finality.”

Trump’s lawyers then made a series of last-minute efforts to block the sentencing. His last hope disappeared Thursday night with a 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court that refused to postpone sentencing.

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

After Trump’s election, special counsel Jack Smith dropped federal indictments over Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A statewide election interference case in Georgia is stuck in uncertainty after prosecutor Fani Willis was removed from it.