Judge Merchan to place a judgment of guilt on president-elect\u2019s permanent record
\n New York
\nUS President-elect Donald Trump will not go to jail or pay a fine over his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to an adult star, a judge ruled on Friday, but the sentencing will place a judgment of guilt on his record.
\nJustice Juan Merchan\u2019s sentencing of Trump, 78, to unconditional discharge closes a case that had loomed over his bid to retake the White House just days before his January 20 inauguration.
\nBy granting an unconditional discharge, Merchan would place a judgment of guilt on Trump\u2019s permanent record \u2014 without any other legal penalty such as custody, a fine or probation.
\nTrump pleaded not guilty and has vowed to appeal the guilty verdict. He appeared with his lawyer on TV screens beamed to the courtroom with two American flags in the background.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a political witch hunt,\u201d Trump said before sentencing, wearing a red tie with white stripes.
\n\u201cIt was done to damage my reputation so I would lose the election and obviously that didn\u2019t work.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m totally innocent, I did nothing wrong,\u201d said Trump, who did not testify during the six-week trial last year.
\nNow that he has been sentenced, he is free to pursue the appeal, a process which could take years and play out while he is serving a four-year term as president.
\nTrump fought tooth and nail to avoid the spectacle of being compelled to appear before a state-level judge so close to when he is due to be sworn into office.
\nThe US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a last-minute bid by Trump to halt it.
\nThe six-week trial last year played out against the extraordinary backdrop of Trump\u2019s successful campaign to retake the White House.
\nThe sentencing marks the culmination of the first-ever criminal case brought against a US president, past or present.
\nTrump will be the first president to take office with a criminal conviction.
\nManhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, charged Trump, a Republican, in March 2023 with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen\u2019s $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump, who denied it.
\nTrump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in that election.
\nThe Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts on May 30. Prosecutors argued that despite the tawdry nature of the allegations, the case was an attempt to corrupt the 2016 election.
\nCritics of the businessman-turned politician cited the charges and other legal entanglements he faced to bolster their contention that he was unfit for public office.
\nTrump flipped the script. He argued the case \u2014 along with three other criminal indictments and civil lawsuits accusing him of fraud, defamation and sexual abuse \u2014 was an effort by opponents to weaponize the justice system against him and harm his reelection campaign.
\nHe frequently lashed out at prosecutors and witnesses, and Merchan ultimately fined Trump $10,000 for violating a gag order.
\nAs recently as January 3, Trump called the judge a \u201cradical partisan\u201d in a post on his Truth Social platform.
\nIn a decision that day, Merchan said that setting aside the verdict would \u201cundermine the Rule of Law in immeasurable ways\u201d and wrote that Trump\u2019s behavior during the trial showed disrespect for the judiciary.
\n\u201cDefendant 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,\u201d Merchan said.
\nA political mixed bag
\nThe hush money case was widely viewed as less serious than the three other criminal cases Trump faced, in which he was accused of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and retaining classified documents after leaving the White House. Trump pleaded not guilty in all cases.
\nBut Bragg\u2019s case was the only one to reach trial in the face of an onslaught of challenges from Trump\u2019s lawyers.
\nAfter Trump\u2019s November 5 election victory, federal prosecutors backed off their two cases due to Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
\nThe remaining state case, brought in Georgia over efforts to reverse the 2020 election results in that state, is in limbo after a court in December disqualified the lead prosecutor on the case.
\nThe hush money case was a mixed bag politically. Contributions to Trump\u2019s campaign surged after he was indicted in March 2023, likely helping him vanquish his rivals for the Republican nomination.
\nDuring the trial, polling showed a majority of voters took the charges seriously, and his standing among Republicans slipped after the guilty verdict.
\nBut the case quickly faded from the headlines, particularly after President Joe Biden\u2019s disastrous debate performance led him to drop out with Vice President Kamala Harris replacing him on the Democratic ticket, and after a gunman\u2019s bullet came inches from killing Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
\nMerchan initially scheduled the sentencing for July 11, but pushed it back multiple times at Trump\u2019s request.
\nIn agreeing in September to defer the sentencing until after the election, the judge wrote that he was wary of being perceived as placing his thumb on the scales.
\nFalsification of business records is punishable by up to four years in prison.
\nWhile Trump would have been unlikely to get jail time due to his advanced age and lack of a criminal history, legal experts said it was not impossible, especially given his gag order violations.
\nTrump\u2019s victory and looming inauguration made a sentence of jail or probation even less practical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Judge Merchan to place a judgment of guilt on president-elect\u2019s permanent record New York US President-elect Donald Trump will not go to jail or pay a fine over his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to an adult star, a judge ruled on Friday, but the sentencing will place a judgment of guilt on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-454674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n