The New York judge who presided over Donald Trump’s hush money case on Friday sentenced the president-elect to an “unconditional discharge,” meaning he is now a convicted felon in the eyes of New York state law but will face no further penalties.
“This has been a very terrible experience,” a dour Trump said, speaking remotely from his Florida home when allowed to address the judge.
“It was done to damage my reputation so I would lose the election,” he said. “I am totally innocent. I did nothing wrong,” he maintained.
The sentencing came just 10 days before Trump is set to be sworn in as the country’s 47th president.
“Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances,” Judge Juan Merchan said before he handed down his sentence. “This has been a truly extraordinary case.”
Trump’s attorneys had repeatedly sought to stay the proceeding, which Merchan scheduled last week. Their appeals to Merchan, two state appeals courts and even the country’s highest court over the past week were unsuccessful. Trump’s last hope, the U.S. Supreme Court, declined to block the proceeding in a 5-4 ruling late Thursday.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said in court that Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts punishable by one to four years in prison, but recommended the judge hand down “a sentence of unconditional release” given the unique circumstances of the case.
“We must be respectful of the office of the presidency, and mindful of the fact that this defendant will be inaugurated as president in ten days,” Steinglass said, while also saying that Trump has acted like he’s “above the law” throughout the case, including with his frequent verbal attacks on the judge, prosecutors and even their family members.
“This defendant has caused enduring damage to the public perception of the criminal justice system,” he said.
Trump attorney Todd Blanche countered that it was the Manhattan district attorney’s office that overstepped in the case. He said Steinglass’ position assumes “this case is legally appropriate, and the charges that were brought by the people were consistent with the laws of New York. Again we very much disagree with that.”
“This is a case that without a doubt was brought by a district attorney who promised he would go after President Trump if elected, and he had to go through with that promise,” Blanche said.
“It’s a very sad day. It’s a sad day for President Trump and his family and his friends, but it’s also, in counsel’s view, a sad day for this country,” Blanche said, adding that Trump planned to fully appeal the case after the sentence was entered.
Donald Trump appears remotely for a sentencing hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court, in New York City, on Friday.Angela Weiss / Pool via Getty Images
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The sentencing means Trump will make some ignominious history before he becomes only the second president to be sworn in for two nonconsecutive terms: He’ll be the only president to have been sentenced on criminal charges.
Trump, in remarks to the media from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Thursday after the Supreme Court ruling, alluded to the possibility of further appeals, such as an attempt to appeal the verdict itself.
“So I’ll do my little thing tomorrow. They can have fun with their political opponent,” he said.
The president-elect took to his social media platform Truth Social after the proceeding Friday to tout the light sentence. “That result alone proves that, as all Legal Scholars and Experts have said, THERE IS NO CASE, THERE WAS NEVER A CASE, and this whole Scam fully deserves to be DISMISSED.”
Merchan had revealed in a decision last week ordering the sentencing to proceed that he would most likely give Trump an unconditional discharge given singular circumstances.
He also, however, blasted Trump for both the conduct that led to his conviction in May and his behavior during and after the trial.
Responding last week in his ruling to Trump’s argument that the charges weren’t serious and that they should be dismissed, Merchan wrote, “12 jurors unanimously found Defendant guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records with the intent to defraud, which included an intent to commit or conceal a conspiracy to promote a presidential election by unlawful means. It was the premeditated and continuous deception by the leader of the free world that is the gravamen of this offense.”
“To vacate this verdict on the grounds that the charges are insufficiently serious given the position Defendant once held, and is about to assume again, would constitute a disproportionate result and cause immeasurable damage to the citizenry’s confidence in the Rule of Law,” he wrote.
He also took Trump to task for his attacks on the judicial system.
“Defendant’s disdain for the Third Branch of government, whether state or federal, in New York or elsewhere, is a matter of public record. Indeed, Defendant has gone to great lengths to broadcast on social media and other forums his lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and the justice system as a whole,” Merchan wrote, saying he’d repeatedly found Trump in contempt for violating his partial gag order in the case “despite repeated admonitions.”
Trump, he noted, has continued to call the order “unlawful” and “unconstitutional,” even though “it has been challenged and upheld by the Appellate Division First Department and the New York Court of Appeals, no less than eight times.”
“Indeed, as Defendant must surely know, the same Order was left undisturbed by the United States Supreme Court on December 9, 2024. Yet Defendant continues to undermine its legitimacy, in posts to his millions of followers,” Merchan wrote. The gag order expired after the sentencing, per the terms of a Merchan order last June.
In his ruling last week, the judge noted that a sentence of incarceration is “authorized by the conviction” but said it is also an alternative that even prosecutors “no longer view as a practicable recommendation” given Trump’s imminent swearing-in.
Blanche suggested at an appeals court hearing seeking to block the sentencing this week that he was skeptical Merchan would give Trump an unconditional discharge, despite what he wrote in his order.
“I don’t know how anyone can give any weight to that,” Blanche said.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told reporters Thursday, “We believe that the sanctity of the jury verdict must be given primacy, must be upheld as part of the rule of law, but we’re also mindful of and respect the institution of the presidency.”
Trump’s conviction arose from charges that he falsified business records related to hush money his former attorney Michael Cohen gave porn star Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Daniels testified that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, which he has denied.
The case was one of four criminal cases Trump was facing at the beginning of 2024 and the only one that went to trial.
A state case charging Trump interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia is paused as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is challenging an appeals court order that removed her and her office from the case last month.
The Justice Department dropped two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith after Trump won the election, citing its Office of Legal Counsel’s holding that it can’t prosecute a sitting president.
Adam Reiss
