President-elect Donald Trump sentenced to unconditional discharge on historic hush money conviction

Donald Trump’s historic criminal conviction ended without penalty in a Manhattan courtroom Friday, as the president-elect was sentenced to an unconditional discharge for his conviction on felony charges that he paid hush money to an adult film actress to conceal their affair as he ran for president in 2016.

In a relatively short, but symbolic proceeding that lacked dramatics, State Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan handed down the non-prison sentence, which he had forecast in a ruling last week, removing the air of suspense on what potential punishment the soon-to-be American president would receive. The unconditional discharge carries no penalty, other than the stain of a criminal conviction.

But Trump will have the distinction of being the first president to enter the White House as a convicted felon. He has vowed to appeal.

"This court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction without encroaching on the highest office of the land is an unconditional discharge," Merchan said. "Sir, I wish you godspeed as you assume your second term in office."

Merchan explained that his election as president had changed the calculus for sentencing.

"The considerable, indeed, extraordinary legal protections afforded by the office of the chief executive is a factor that overrides all others," said Merchan. "To be clear, the protections afforded the office of the president are not a mitigating factor. They do not reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way. The protections are, however, a legal mandate, which pursuant to the rule of law, this court must respect and follow. However, despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict."

Trump appeared by video from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida — a courtesy extended by the judge that illustrated the truly unparalleled nature of sentencing a defendant who is poised to be the leader of the free world in a matter of days.

Rarely, if ever, are criminal defendants permitted to skip their sentencing in-person.

Just 10 days before Trump is set to be inaugurated as president for a second time, he appeared, once again, as a criminal defendant during the roughly 30-minute proceeding — short by comparison, to most criminal sentencings.

There were no victim impact statements. Both the prosecution and the defense kept their comments relatively short. The judge read from prepared remarks.

Wearing his trademark dark suit and red tie, Trump, with his defense attorney Todd Blanche at his right, sat in front of two U.S. flags and launched a verbal attack against the case — albeit in a restrained and somewhat respectful tone — when he was given the chance to address the court.

"The fact is, I am totally innocent, I did nothing wrong," Trump said, calling his prosecution "a very terrible experience."

News photographers were permitted to enter the courtroom and photograph Trump and his attorney as they appeared on the television monitor, which was also allowed during much of Trump’s trial. The court, in a rare move that was advocated for by a consortium of media outlets — including Newsday — also permitted the audio recording of the full proceeding, which was distributed to the press after it had concluded.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass reminded the judge that the jury’s unanimous verdict must be respected, but acknowledged that any other sentence besides an unconditional discharge could interfere with his duties when he becomes president in 10 days.

"The people recommend that this court impose a sentence of an unconditional discharge," Steinglass said, citing the unique position of Trump as president-elect.

"The American public has the right to a presidency unencumbered by pending court proceedings or ongoing sentence-related obligations."

Steinglass, however, reminded the judge that Trump had repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the proceedings, which had hurts the public’s confidence in the judiciary. And in an interview with probation officials, as is customary following a defendant’s conviction, Trump "sees himself as above the law," a probation official wrote, Steinglass said.

"This defendant has caused enduring damage to the public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way," said Steinglass.

Blanche, in very brief comments, reiterated he and his client’s thoughts that the case was unjustly brought and confirmed that Trump would pursue an appeal of the verdict.

"A lot of what the government just said presupposes that this case is legally appropriate and that the charges that were brought by the people were consistent with the laws of New York," said Blanche. "Again, we very much disagree with that and as everybody has noted, because it’s true, we certainly intend on appealing that."

Outside the courthouse, a small crowd of protesters gathered. A few wore red MAGA hats, held American flags and displayed a large sign that read: "Free Trump Save America."

Another group held signs calling Trump a "fraud" and "morally bankrupt" and called for him to receive a harsher punishment.

Trump's lawyers, who have argued that Trump was wrongly convicted, have sought to overturn his conviction based on the notion of presidential immunity, which they have argued should include the period when Trump is president-elect. Full appeal efforts based on the defense's contention of a wrongful conviction and presidential immunity, can commence now that Trump has officially been sentenced.

Trump, 78, had tried in vain to stop the sentencing in light of his reelection as president last year — appealing to the trial judge, a state appeals court and even an emergency effort for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, which failed on a 5-4 vote — for the proceeding to be stayed.

The majority on the Supreme Court ruled Thursday evening that Trump would not face an insurmountable burden during the presidential transition by being sentenced because Merchan had indicated he didn't plan on sentencing Trump to jail or probation — removing any legal avenues for Trump's team to stop or delay the sentencing.

In May, an anonymous Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records during a seven weeklong trial, which included embarrassing testimony detailing Trump's sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels just months after his youngest son was born in 2006.

Legal observers doubted that Trump, in his late 70s and a first-time offender of a nonviolent crime, would receive jail time.

But Merchan had wide latitude to sentence Trump, who was openly hostile to the judge, calling him "corrupt" and "Trump-hating," to probation or a short jail sentence. Trump faced up to four years in prison under the state statute.

Despite his historic conviction Trump's political fortunes have soared since his hush money trial.

At the time, the then-presumptive Republican presidential nominee, whose path back to the White House was not guaranteed, faced 88 criminal charges in three other jurisdictions.

But Trump handily won the November election against Vice President Kamala Harris, and since then, prosecutors have moved to drop the other criminal cases — including allegations that he attempted to overturn his loss in the 2020 election and mishandled classified documents.

The hush money case, the least serious of alleged offenses, was the only one that stuck, and leaves Trump as a convicted felon.

Trump has denied the affair, denied he broke the law and chalked up his indictment, arrest and prosecution to a conspiracy helmed by President Joe Biden.

But 12 Manhattan jurors, whose identities were not released publicly, sided with the prosecution's narrative of what occurred beginning some 19 years ago when Trump had sex with Daniels in a Lake Tahoe, Nevada, hotel room and a decade after that, when prosecutors say Trump deputized his personal attorney to pay $130,000 in hush money to Daniels because the story of their liaison threatened to put the final nail in the coffin of his presidential dreams.

Trump, along with his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen, a Lawrence native, and Trump associate David Pecker, then the publisher of the parent company of the supermarket tabloid The National Enquirer, conspired to help Trump win the 2016 election.

At the heart of the conspiracy was "catch and kill," a tabloid scheme that had Pecker and his deputy serve as the "eyes and ears" for negative stories about Trump being shopped around for publication.

The plan was executed three times, according to prosecutors. Daniels was paid $130,000 for the rights to her story, while former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump was paid $150,000. Dino Sajudin, a door attendant at Trump Tower who had shopped around a false story that Trump had fathered a child outside of his marriage, was paid $30,000.

Prosecutors likened the nondisclosure agreement that Daniels signed to an illegal campaign donation.

Cohen made the payment to Daniels — the only payee whose payment resulted in charges against Trump — and he was later reimbursed by Trump in a series of checks, trial evidence showed.

The reimbursements were recorded as legal services as part of a retainer agreement in the Trump Organization's records, which prosecutors said was false, trial evidence showed.

The misdemeanor charges of falsifying business records are misdemeanors, but prosecutors upgraded them to Class E felonies, arguing the crimes were committed to cover up another crime — conspiracy to promote an election by unlawful means.

Prosecutors had argued that the famously frugal Trump was only moved to sign-off on the hush money payment to Daniels in the waning days of the 2016 election after the release of the infamous "Access Hollywood" video, which featured Trump bragging that his fame gave him entrée to grab women by their genitals.

Former Trump campaign and White House aide Hope Hicks testified that the publication of the video by The Washington Post was highly damaging and had created panic inside the campaign.

Blanche, now his choice to be deputy attorney general in his new administration, argued that Trump was a victim of extortion by Daniels and Keith Davidson, her attorney. Davidson denied the allegation.

Cohen, the prosecution's star witness, had recorded Trump in a phone call discussing the payment to McDougal, saying to pay in "cash," which was played for the jury.

During the trial, Merchan found Trump is criminal contempt for comments he made in violation of a gag order imposed, barring Trump from speaking publicly about the jurors and court staff.

Trump was fined $10,000 and threatened with jail time if he continued to violate the judge's order, which was partially lifted after his conviction.

Trump framed his prosecution as a "witch hunt," and his supporters by-and-large agreed with Trump’s contention that it was simply a politically charged move by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to keep him from being elected president again.

Bragg, like Merchan, was mocked relentlessly by Trump on social media and at campaign events and received scores of death threats.

Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on his conviction on July 11, but a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court asserting that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution led Trump’s defense team to file a motion requesting Merchan set aside the verdict and dismiss the indictment against Trump.

Merchan, with the agreement of the prosecution, agreed to delay the sentencing while he considered the defense motion.

Trump's attorneys argued that allowing the jury to hear testimony from Hicks and another White House aide — who testified about some of Trump's actions while he was president — had "tainted" the trial, citing the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity.

Merchan, in denying the defense's move to set aside the guilty verdicts based on premise of presidential immunity, said: "To dismiss the indictment and set aside the jury verdict would not serve the concerns set forth by the Supreme Court in its handful of cases addressing presidential immunity nor would it serve the rule of law. On the contrary, such a decision would undermine the rule of law in immeasurable ways."

The prosecution opposed overturning the jury's verdict but appeared amenable to postponing Trump's sentencing for four years — once Trump departed the Oval Office.

But Merchan ultimately ruled that the proceeding would go on.