Trump’s hush money sentence ensures a convicted felon is going to the White House
Anyone not named Donald Trump would have likely gone to jail, but he can’t throw out a unanimous decision from a jury of his New York neighbors, Alex Woodward writes from Manhattan criminal court
President-elect Donald Trump is not going to jail, at least not today.
He isn’t being forced to pay any fines. He won’t have to check in with a court-ordered probation officer like most criminal defendants with felony convictions.
But a sentence handed down by a judge in a criminal courtroom in Manhattan on January 10 preserves one of the most important parts of the first ever criminal trial of a former and future president: the verdict itself.
Trump has desperately fought off his four criminal cases to prevent the historic embarrassment of entering the White House a second time as the first criminally convicted president. His two federal cases were effectively closed with his election victory. Another case lost the prosecutor who brought the charges. But one made it to trial.
More than seven months after a jury of his 12 Manhattan neighbors unanimously found Trump guilty on all 34 counts against him, the president-elect has escaped any criminal consequences on convictions that would most certainly land anyone not named Trump in jail.
But the verdict remains, and unless an appeals court overturns the case altogether imminently, Trump will enter the White House on January 20 as a convicted felon.
He can’t pardon himself on his convictions, and he was denied the indignity of appearing in handcuffs or in a prison jumpsuit he would certainly use in fundraising and propaganda.
Instead, he must live with the vote of 12 of his Manhattan neighbors.
“The significance of the fact that the verdict was handed down by a unanimous jury of 12 of Defendant’s peers, after trial, cannot possibly be overstated,” New York Justice Juan Merchan wrote in his refusal to impose any further delays in Trump’s sentencing.
“Indeed, the sanctity of a jury verdict and the deference that must be accorded to it, is a bedrock principle in our nation’s jurisprudence,” he added.
The former president’s pile of civil and criminal cases created Russian nesting dolls of courtroom battles, with seemingly every case spinning off into appeals courts and separate debates over evidence, gag orders and legal strategies, all of which bought him exactly what he wanted: time.
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision on presidential “immunity” – which he used as his defense against charges for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election – ensured he would not face a trial before the next one.
He then relied on that sweeping decision to try to shut down virtually every case against him. When he won the election, his attorneys argued that his status as president-elect should also shield him from any criminal proceedings – effectively extending that “immunity” to citizen Trump.
And when it came time to face the judge one last time, he spent seven minutes of a 30-minute sentencing complaining as if he was at a press conference.
A report prepared by a probation officer found that Trump “sees himself as above the law and won’t accept responsibility for his actions,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the court.
Any other person not named Trump who committed those same 34 felonies “would very likely face a jail sentence,” said Norm Eisen, a special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee majority during Trump’s first impeachment.
Ending the case without any consequences isn’t the fault of Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who “are simply dealing with the realities of the Supreme Court’s complicit and corrupt decision about presidential immunity,” he told The Independent.
“The fact is, Trump facing any sentencing is a form of accountability in itself, and the fact that the judge [gave] him an unconditional release does not in any way detract from the profound offenses against democracy that occurred here,” he said.
A group of former prosecutors, elected officials and legal scholars, represented by pro-democracy group State Democracy Defenders Action, told the Supreme Court that delaying his sentence “would subvert the rule of law by elevating a private citizen above the law, absolving him of sentencing for prior conduct because he subsequently won a presidential election.”
“The only reason for delaying sentencing is because of the continuing personal stigma associated with being sentenced following a conviction — which [Trump] can challenge on appeal,” they wrote. “Treating [Trump] differently, solely because he is about to be President, violates the fundamental principle that no one is above the law.”
Prosecutors and Merchan have “reiterated that it is in the best interests of the country to bring closure to this matter prior to the inauguration,” former prosecutor and New York criminal attorney Francisco Mundaca told The Independent.
“There’s no reason” for the courts to have tried to stop Trump’s sentencing, according to Jordan Lebowitz with government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The Supreme Court “made a terrible mistake with the immunity decision, but this should go through even under that,” he toldThe Independent. “The sanctity of the American justice system requires this case to reach its logical and legal conclusion.”