Judge orders Trump to be sentenced on Jan. 10 in hush-money case
Justice Juan Merchan said he is not inclined to sentence Trump to any term of incarceration just 10 days before he is set to be sworn in as president for a second term
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Your support makes all the difference.The judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump in his home state of New York has ordered the president-elect to appear before him on January 10 to face a sentence after jury convicted him on 34 felony counts last year.
In a stunning, 18-page ruling released on Friday, Justice Juan Merchan said he would not sentence Trump to a term of incarceration but would instead impose “a sentence of unconditional discharge” — meaning a sentence of no jail time, probation or fines — as “the most viable solution” and permit Trump to continue to appeal the case.
The hearing is scheduled just 10 days before the president-elect is inaugurated.
A jury of 12 New Yorkers found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in May after a six-week-long trial.
Trump falsified business records in connection with a scheme to silence adult film stat Stormy Daniels, whose story about having sex with Trump threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump’s reimbursements to his then-attorney Michael Cohen, who paid off Daniels, were falsely recorded in accounting records as “legal expenses.”
Trump has denied all wrongdoing as well as the affair with Daniels.
Sentencing in the New York criminal trial was originally supposed to take place in July but was postponed until September after the Supreme Court issued a decision on presidential immunity, which shielded presidents from criminal prosecution for actions stemming from “official” duties in office.
But sentencing was indefinitely postponed after his victory in the 2024 presidential election, giving the defense and prosecution time to weigh in on how the case should be handled.
Last month, Merchan said the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity for sitting presidents does not apply to his criminal case in New York and refused to drop the case altogether, finding that the evidence and testimony were “entirely” about “unofficial conduct entitled to no immunity protections.”
Trump’s actions were “personal acts” that fall outside the so-called “outer perimeter” of official presidential duties, and there is no “danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch” in this case, Merchan wrote.
In his order on Friday, Merchan that the threat of “public stigma” from prosecution against Trump “has long passed,” citing Trump’s own arguments that courts should “defer to the will of the cinzenry who recendy re-elected him to the Office of the Executive, norwithstanding an actual guilty verdict in this case.”
“Thus, whatever stigma that might have existed, will most certainly not interfere with Defendant’s ability to carry out his duties — both as President-elect and as the sitting President,” Merchan wrote.
Merchan noted that Trump had asked for the sentencing to be put on hold until after the election and called the claim that his win in that election changed the circumstances of the case “disingenuous.”
“Defendant has always pronounced, since the inception of this case, confidence and indeed the expectation, that he would prevail in the 2024 Election — confidence that has proven well-founded,” Merchan wrote.
“That he would become the ‘President-elect’ and be required to assume all the responsibilities that come with the transition were entirely anticipated,” he added.
Trump’s request to postpone sentencing implied that he would still face a sentence “during the window between the election and the taking of the oath of office,” Merchan wrote.
In ordering Trump to appear — either in-person or virtually — for sentencing, Merchan said the need to respect the jury’s verdict against the former president turned president-elect makes it even more important that Trump be sentenced on the charges on which he’s been found guilty.
He wrote that “the sanctity of a jury verdict and the deference that must be accorded to it” is “a bedrock principle” of American jurisprudence.
The conviction initially held the possibility that Trump could serve up to four years in jail or thousands of dollars in fines.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, called Merchan’s order “deeply conflicted” and a “direct violation” of the Supreme Court’s immunity deicsion. He indicated Trump would fight sentencing.
“This lawless case should have never been brought and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung said.
Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani, who was testifying for more than three hours inside a federal courtroom down the street from Manhattan criminal court on Friday when news broks of Merchan’s order, called the sentencing “absurd.”
The end of the unprecedented criminal case — resulting in the first-ever criminally convicted president, a stain that will remain through his presidency unless overturned on appeal — follows the closure of two federal investigations that had yet to make it to trial.
Special counsel Jack Smith has effectively closed two cases against the former president, for now, and an appeals court in Georgia has forced off the district attorney presiding over a sweeping criminal case against Trump and his allies.
Trump has meanwhile nominated several of his own criminal defense attorneys to top roles at the Department of Justice, including lead hush money attorneys Todd Blanche and Emile Bove.