Donald Trump has been sentenced but the US President-elect avoided penalties for his conviction over hush-money payments made to an adult film actress.
Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump to an “unconditional discharge” on Friday, January 10, 2025, a day after the US Supreme Court rejected an attempt by Trump’s legal team to delay sentencing before the Republican leader’s inauguration on January 20, 2025.
The decision means that Trump’s conviction will appear on his permanent record, but he does not face imprisonment, a fine, or probation – leaving him unencumbered to enter the White House.
This makes Trump the first former United States President ever sentenced for a crime.
Trump, who previously served as President from 2017 to 2021, was found guilty in late May on 34 counts of falsifying business documents related to hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels, among other things.
Appearing virtually at Friday’s sentencing hearing, Trump said his criminal trial and conviction had “been a very terrible experience” and insisted he committed no crime.
“It’s been a political witch-hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so I would lose the election and obviously that didn’t work.”
Donald Trump
Judge Juan Merchan said the legal protections of the presidency “do not reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way,” adding that “one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict.”
Under New York’s penal code, a court can sentence a defendant to an unconditional discharge if it “is of the opinion that no proper purpose would be served by imposing any condition upon the defendant’s release”.
Earlier this week, Trump’s lawyers had asked the Supreme Court to delay the sentencing “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government.”
They argued that a ruling last year by the top court that grants presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution means that some of the evidence should not have been presented in the case.
However, a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court said in a decision late on Thursday that the “alleged evidentiary violations” at Trump’s state-court trial “can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal.”
They also stated that the burden that sentencing will impose on Trump’s responsibilities “is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of ‘unconditional discharge’ after a brief virtual hearing.”
Now that he has been sentenced, Trump is free to pursue the appeal, a process that could take years and play out while he is serving his four-year term as President.
Trump Promises To Appeal
US President-elect, Donald Trump responded to his hush money sentencing in a post on Truth Social, railing against Democrats and promising to appeal. “The Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt,” he said in the post.
He argued that “there was never a case.”
“The real Jury, the American People, have spoken, by Re-Electing me with an overwhelming MANDATE in one of the most consequential Elections in History. As the American People have seen, this ‘case’ had no crime, no damages, no proof, no facts, no Law, only a highly conflicted Judge, a star witness who is a disbarred, disgraced, serial perjurer, and criminal Election Interference.
“Today’s event was a despicable charade, and now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice.”
Donald Trump
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