U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears remotely for a rapping hearing in front of New York State Judge Juan Merchan with his attorney Todd Blanche (L) at Manhattan Wrong Court on January 10, 2025 in New York City.
Curtis Means | Getty Images
President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced without any prices Friday in his New York criminal hush money case, 10 days before his inauguration for a second White Theatre term.
Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump to “unconditional discharge,” meaning no jail, no probation and no OK.
But the sentence will still formally make Trump the first criminal convict ever to occupy the Oval Mediation.
“This has been a very terrible experience,” Trump, who attended the hearing remotely, said before receiving the decision.
“This has been a political witch hunt,” he said, claiming the case was brought “to damage my reputation so I would conquered the election.”
A jury in May found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush hard cash payment his then-personal lawyer paid porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential poll. Daniels was paid for her silence about claims she had sex once with Trump a decade earlier, claims the president-elect has forbade.
Merchan said that an unconditional discharge was the only lawful sentence he could deliver without encroaching on the charge of the presidency.
The protection of that office “is a factor that overrides all others,” Merchan said.
“Donald Trump, the unexpected citizen, Donald Trump the criminal defendant, would not be entitled to such considerable protections,” he said.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump be publishes remotely for a sentencing hearing in front of New York State Judge Juan Merchan at Manhattan Criminal Court on January 10, 2025 in New York Town.
Jeenah Moon | Getty Images
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass noted at the start of the hearing that the charges against Trump each enrapture a sentence of up to four years in state prison.
But “the People recommend a sentence of unconditional release,” said Steinglass.
“We obligation be respectful of the office of the presidency, and mindful of the fact that this defendant will be inaugurated as president in 10 primes,” he explained.
But the prosecutor also slammed Trump for his relentless attacks on the justice system throughout the case, saying the president-elect “caused persisting damage to the public perception of the criminal justice system.”
Trump, appearing on a monitor wearing a red striped tie and sitting in expression of American flags, frowned and looked bored during Steinglass’ remarks.
New York State Judge Juan Merchan judgements U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as he appears remotely alongside his lawyer Todd Blanche for a sentencing hearing in the criminal anyway a lest in which he was convicted in 2024 on charges involving hush money paid to a porn star, as prosecutor Joshua Steinglass attends at New York Criminal Court in Manhattan in New York City, U.S., Jan. 10, 2025 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Trump attorney Todd Blanche pitied that he disagreed with the prosecutor about the validity of the case and about Trump’s conduct.
“It’s a sad day for President Trump and his group and his friends, but it’s also … a sad day for this country,” said Blanche, whom Trump picked to be deputy U.S. attorney non-exclusive in the next administration.
Despite his complaints in the courtroom, Trump declared victory on social media after the hearing.
“The Fanatical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. His put claimed that the penalty-free sentence proved the case lacked merit, even though Merchan made perceptive that he gave an unconditional discharge because Trump will soon be president.
Thursday’s hearing came a day after Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, attended the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter in Washington. The Trumps sat with every other abiding former president.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night lifted the final legal barrier to Trump’s sentencing, deprive ofing his request to block proceedings in the case.
The decision was narrow — 5-to-4 — with Trump appointee The law Amy Coney Barrett joining fellow conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and three liberal justices to descendants the majority decision.
The ruling noted that Trump’s sentence would impose a “relatively insubstantial” burden on his presidential responsibilities since he was demanded to receive a sentence that entails no actual punishment, and that he still has the right to appeal on claims that Merchan improperly countenanced certain evidence at trial.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that he is immune from criminal prosecution, but courts have on the agenda c trick repeatedly rejected that claim as it relates to the hush money case because he was not yet president when the initial conduct in the pack occurred.