Trump convicted in hush money case, but without jail term or fine

US president-elect says his criminal trial and conviction has "been a very terrible experience" and insisted he committed no crime

New York: President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced on Friday in his hush money case, but the judge declined to impose any punishment. The outcome cements Trump’s conviction before he returns to power before while freeing him to return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.

Trump’s sentence of an unconditional discharge caps a norm-smashing case that saw the former and future President charged with 34 felonies, put on trial for almost two months and convicted by a jury on every count.

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Yet, the legal detour — and sordid details aired in court of a plot to bury affair allegations — didn’t hurt him with voters, who elected him to a second term. Manhattan Judge Juan M Merchan could have sentenced the 78-year-old Republican to up to four years in prison. Instead, he chose a sentence that sidestepped thorny constitutional issues by effectively ending the case but assured that Trump will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidency.

Merchan said that like when facing any other defendant, he must consider any aggravating factors before imposing a sentence, but the legal protection that Trump will have as President “is a factor that overrides all others”. “Despite the extraordinary breadth of those legal protections, one power they do not provide is that they do not erase a jury verdict,” Merchan said.

Trump, briefly addressing the court as he appeared virtually from his Florida home, said his criminal trial and conviction has “been a very terrible experience” and insisted he committed no crime. The Republican former President, appearing on a video feed 10 days before he is inaugurated, again pilloried the case, the only one of his four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will.

“It’s been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election, and obviously, that didn’t work,” Trump said. Trump called the case “a weaponisation of government” and “an embarrassment to New York”.

With Trump 10 days from the inauguration, Judge Juan M Merchan has indicated he plans a no-penalty sentence called an unconditional discharge, and prosecutors aren’t opposing it. That would mean no jail time, no probation and no fines would be imposed, but nothing is final until Friday’s proceeding is done.

Prosecutors said on Friday that they supported a no-penalty sentence, but they chided Trump’s attacks on the legal system throughout and after the case. “The once and future President of the United States has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said.

Rather than show remorse, Trump has “bred disdain” for the jury verdict and the criminal justice system, Steinglass said, and his calls for retaliation against those involved in the case, including calling for the judge to be disbarred, “has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has put officers of the court in harm’s way”.

As he appeared from his Florida home, the former President was seated with his lawyer Todd Blanche, whom he’s tapped to serve as the second-highest ranking Justice Department official in his incoming administration. “Legally, this case should not have been brought,” Blanche said, reiterating Trump’s intention to appeal the verdict.

That technically can’t happen until he’s sentenced. Regardless of the outcome, Trump, a Republican, will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidency. The judge has indicated that he plans the unconditional discharge — a rarity in felony convictions — partly to avoid complicated constitutional issues that would arise if he imposed a penalty that overlapped with Trump’s presidency.