Posted on 01/10/25
| News Source: The Hill
President-elect Trump was spared any punishment for his hush money criminal conviction Friday when a New York judge sentenced him to an unconditional discharge, eschewing jail time while securing his status as the first felon to assume the presidency.
Judge Juan Merchan’s decision to release Trump with no strings attached caps the first and onlycriminal trial of a former president less than two weeks before he’s set to return to the White House.
New York jurors found him guilty of 34 felonies over a scheme intended to unlawfully sway the 2016 election by concealing a payment [...]which Trump has denied.
With the judge’s permission, Trump appeared virtually for the roughly 40-minute long sentencing on Friday.
Trump relentlessly sought to stave off his sentencing until after he takes office. It was originally set for July, but Trump convinced Merchan to delay it until after the election as the judge weighed whether the conviction could withstand the Supreme Court’s ruling carving out broad criminal immunity for former presidents’ official acts.
Upon becoming president-elect, Trump’s efforts to dismantle the case intensified, with new arguments that he should be immediately afforded the protections of a sitting president.
Even after Merchan signaled no punishment was the “most viable solution” given Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution during his upcoming White House term, he appealed his effort to stop the case in its tracks all the way to the Supreme Court, which didn’t intervene.