Judge sets Trump’s sentencing in Hush-Money case for January 10

(NEW YORK) — In an extraordinary turn, a judge on Friday set President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case for Jan. 10, just over a week before his return to the White House, but indicated that I wouldn’t do it. be imprisoned.

However, this development leaves Trump on track to become the first president to take office convicted of serious crimes.

Judge Juan M. Merchán, who presided over Trump’s trial, said in a written decision that he would sentence the former and future president to what is known as probation, in which a case is dismissed if a defendant avoids re-arrest. .

Merchan rejected pressure from Trump to throw out the verdict and dismiss the case on the grounds of presidential immunity and because of his imminent return to the White House. The judge said he found “no legal impediment to sentencing” Trump and that it was “up to him” to sentence Trump before his inauguration on Jan. 20.

“Only by giving definitive character to this matter” will the interests of justice be served, Merchan wrote.

Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records. It involved an alleged scheme to conceal a payment of money to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of Trump’s first campaign in 2016. The payment was made to prevent her from going public with claims that she had had sexual relations with the Trump married years before. He says his story is false and that he did nothing wrong.

After Trump’s election on Nov. 5, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed sentencing so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.

Trump’s lawyers urged Merchan to throw it out. They said failing to do so would pose unconstitutional “disturbances” to the incoming president’s ability to govern the country.

Prosecutors acknowledged there should be some accommodations for his upcoming presidency, but insisted the sentence should stand.

They suggested several options, such as freezing the case during his sentence or guaranteeing him a non-jail sentence. They also proposed closing the case and formally taking note of both his conviction and his undecided appeal, a novel idea drawn from what some state courts do when criminal defendants die while appealing their cases.

Trump will take office on Jan. 20 as the first former president convicted of a crime and the first convicted felon elected to office.

His conviction left the 78-year-old facing penalties ranging from a fine or probation to four years in prison.

The case centered on how Trump justified reimbursing his personal attorney for the payment to Daniels.

The lawyer, Michael Cohen, advanced the money. He later recovered it through a series of payments that Trump’s company recorded as legal expenses. Trump, by then in the White House, signed most of the checks himself.

Prosecutors said the designation was intended to conceal the true purpose of the payments and help cover up a broader effort to prevent voters from hearing unflattering statements about the Republican during his first campaign.

Trump said Cohen was legitimately paid for his legal services and that Daniels’ story was suppressed to avoid embarrassing Trump’s family, not to influence the electorate.

Trump was a private citizen (he was campaigning for president, but was not elected or sworn in) when Cohen paid Daniels in October 2016. He was president when Cohen received the refund, and Cohen testified that they discussed the payment arrangement in the Oval Office .

Trump, a Republican, has denounced the verdict as the “rigged and shameful” result of a “witch hunt” carried out by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat.

Before Trump’s November election, his lawyers sought to overturn his conviction for a different reason: a U.S. Supreme Court decision in July that granted presidents broad immunity from criminal proceedings. That request was still pending when the election raised new questions.

While urging Merchan to overturn the conviction, Trump also sought to move the case to federal court, where he could also assert immunity. A federal judge repeatedly said no, but Trump appealed.

The hush money case was the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial.

Since the election, special prosecutor Jack Smith has ended both of his federal cases. One concerned Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss; the other alleged that he accumulated classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

A separate statewide election interference case in Georgia is largely on hold.