NEW YORK: US President-elect Donald Trump said at his sentencing on Friday (Jan 10) for his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star that the case has been a “terrible experience.”
The hearing, just days before his Jan 20 inauguration, will close a case that loomed for a time over his successful bid last year to retake the White House. Justice Juan Merchan, who oversaw the six-week trial, had signaled previously he did not plan to send Trump to jail or to fine him.
Appearing virtually from Florida with his lawyer Todd Blanche on TV screens beamed to the courtroom with two American flags in the background, Trump said he was innocent and did nothing wrong.
“It’s been a political witch hunt,” Trump said, wearing a red tie with white stripes. “It was done to damage my reputation so I would lose the election and obviously that didn’t work.”
“I’m totally innocent, I did nothing wrong,” said Trump, who did not testify during the six-week trial last year.
By granting an unconditional discharge, Merchan would place a judgment of guilt on Trump’s permanent record – without any other legal penalty such as custody, a fine or probation.
Joshua Steinglass, a prosecutor, said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office supported Merchan’s planned sentence.
“The most sensible sentence prior to his inauguration is an unconditional discharge,” Steinglass said, adding that any other sentence would disrupt Trump’s ability to do his job.
But Steinglass said the jury’s unanimous guilty verdict must be respected by cementing Trump’s status as a convicted felon while he appeals.
“This defendant has caused enduring damage to the public perception of the criminal justice system,” Steinglass said.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, said he disagreed with Steinglass.
“We certainly intend on appealing,” Blanche said. “Legally, this case should not have been brought.”
Steinglass also said Trump had also engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the case and “purposefully bred disdain for our judicial institutions and rule of law.”
Trump, 78, pleaded not guilty and has vowed to appeal the guilty verdict.
He fought tooth and nail to avoid the spectacle of being compelled to appear before a state-level judge days before returning to the White House. But the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Trump’s last-minute bid to halt the sentencing.
The sentencing will mark the culmination of the first-ever criminal case brought against a US president, past or present. Trump will be the first president to take office with a criminal conviction.
Bragg, a Democrat, charged Trump, a Republican, in March 2023 with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s US$130,000 payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump, who denied it.
Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in that election. Critics of the businessman-turned politician cited the charges and other legal entanglements he faced to bolster their contention that he was unfit for public office.
Trump flipped the script. He argued the case – along with three other criminal indictments and civil lawsuits accusing him of fraud, defamation and sexual abuse – was an effort by opponents to weaponize the justice system against him and harm his reelection campaign.
During the trial, Merchan fined Trump US$10,000 for violating a gag order. The Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts on May 30. Prosecutors argued that despite the tawdry nature of the allegations, the case was an attempt to corrupt the 2016 election.
As recently as Jan. 3, Trump called the judge a “radical partisan” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
In a decision that day, Merchan said that setting aside the verdict would “undermine the Rule of Law in immeasurable ways” and wrote that Trump’s behavior during the trial showed disrespect for the judiciary.
“Defendant has gone to great lengths to broadcast on social media and other forums his lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and the justice system as a whole,” Merchan said.
A POLITICAL MIXED BAG
The hush money case was widely viewed as less serious than the three other criminal cases Trump faced, in which he was accused of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and retaining classified documents after leaving the White House. Trump pleaded not guilty in all cases.
But Bragg’s case was the only one to reach trial in the face of an onslaught of challenges from Trump’s lawyers. After Trump’s Nov 5 election victory, federal prosecutors backed off their two cases due to Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
The remaining state case, brought in Georgia over efforts to reverse the 2020 election results in that state, is in limbo after a court in December disqualified the lead prosecutor on the case.
The hush money case was a mixed bag politically. Contributions to Trump’s campaign surged after he was indicted in March 2023, likely helping him vanquish his rivals for the Republican nomination. During the trial, polling showed a majority of voters took the charges seriously, and his standing among Republicans slipped after the guilty verdict.
But the case quickly faded from the headlines, particularly after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance led him to drop out with Vice President Kamala Harris replacing him on the Democratic ticket, and after a gunman’s bullet came inches from killing Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Merchan initially scheduled the sentencing for Jul 11, but pushed it back multiple times at Trump’s request. In agreeing in September to defer the sentencing until after the election, the judge wrote that he was wary of being perceived as placing his thumb on the scales.
Falsification of business records is punishable by up to four years in prison. While Trump would have been unlikely to get jail time due to his advanced age and lack of a criminal history, legal experts said it was not impossible, especially given his gag order violations.
Trump’s victory and looming inauguration made a sentence of jail or probation even less practical.
Source: CNA
