Trump must be punished in the hush money case, but the court says he won’t go to jail

A judge indicated Friday that President-elect Donald Trump is unlikely to be imprisoned or subject to other sanctions in the criminal case in which he was found guilty of paying hush money to a porn actress, but he will be sentenced on January 10.

Due to the decision of Justice Juan Merchan, Trump will have to attend a court hearing ten days before to his inauguration on January 20th, which is unprecedented in American history. Prior to Trump, no American president, whether in office or not, had ever faced criminal charges or been found guilty of a crime.

The 78-year-old Trump might attend his sentence in person or online, the court ruled.

In his letter, he expressed his reluctance to put Trump in jail and said that “unconditional discharge”—which would include no detention, a fine, or probation—would be “the most viable solution.”

The lawsuit was a $130,000 payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels by Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen to silence her over an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump, which she denies. In May, a jury convicted Trump guilty of fabricating documents to conceal the payment before the 2016 election.

Trump might file an appeal after the punishment is imposed. Trump has made it plain that he plans to appeal, Merchan noted in his decision.

Early on Saturday, Trump said he had never fabricated company documents in a post on his Truth Social network.

“It is a fake, made up charge by a corrupt judge who is just doing the work of the Biden/Harris Injustice Department,” Trump stated. “He created a case where there was none.”

In rejecting Trump’s move to have the case dismissed because of his election victory, Merchan revealed his sentencing strategy.

Having the issue loom over Trump throughout his administration, according to his defense attorneys, would make it more difficult for him to lead.

That argument was rejected by Merchan, who wrote that overturning the jury’s decision would “undermine the Rule of Law in immeasurable ways.”

“Defendant’s status as President-elect does not require the drastic and ‘rare’ application of (the court’s) authority to grant the (dismissal) motion,” Opening a new tab, Merchan wrote in the judgment.

Additionally, Merchan denied Trump’s claim in a court filing on December 3 that his “civic and financial contributions to this city and the Nation are too numerous to count” justified his removal.

The court noted that Trump’s public criticism of the legal system was a factor in his assessment of how Trump’s character would play a role in the outcome, even as he acknowledged his time as president.

During the trial, Merchan found Trump guilty of 10 counts of contempt for repeatedly breaking an order that limited his ability to speak about witnesses and other people outside of court. He also criticized what he called Trump’s “unrelenting and unsubstantiated attacks” against the integrity of the criminal proceeding.

“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,” said Merchan.

“It is necessary to analyze the defendant’s character and history in relation to the Rule of Law and the Third Branch of government,” the judge stated, referring to the judiciary. “In that vein, it does not weigh in his favor.”

‘EXTREME REMEDY’

In May, Trump was convicted guilty on 34 charges of manipulating company documents to conceal the payment to Daniels by a Manhattan jury. In his not guilty plea, he claimed that the Democratic prosecutor who filed the charges, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, was trying to undermine his 2024 candidacy.

Trump’s sentence has been postponed many times since it was first planned for July 11, 2024. Trump reportedly agreed to be sentenced during the transition period when he asked in August to postpone the sentencing until after the election, Merchan said on Thursday.

“Any claim Defendant may have that circumstances have changed as a result of Defendant’s victory in the Presidential election, while convenient, is disingenuous,” said Merchan.

Delaying the punishment until after the election was not anything Bragg objected to. Merchan rescheduled it for November 26 in September.

Following Trump’s election victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris on November 5, the court postponed the sentencing indefinitely to determine what to do next.

Bragg’s office had contended that options other than the “extreme remedy” of rejecting the jury’s decision, such postponing the sentence until after Trump leaves the White House in 2029, may allay Trump’s worries about being sidetracked by a criminal case while in office.

The alternative, according to Merchan’s Thursday post, is “less desirable” than imposing a sentence on Trump before to his inauguration.

The President’s Committee

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that presidents cannot be prosecuted for their official actions and that evidence of their official actions cannot be used in criminal cases involving their personal conduct, Trump lost a separate attempt on December 16 to have the hush money conviction overturned.

“There is no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch” in the prosecution of “decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records,” Merchan said in rejecting Trump’s move to dismiss.

Although it is not necessary, falsifying company documents carries a maximum four-year jail sentence. Legal experts predicted that Trump would not likely be imprisoned because of his elderly age and lack of criminal past prior to his election victory.

Trump was accused in three further state and federal criminal prosecutions in 2023, two of which included his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and one of which concerned secret materials he retained after leaving office.

He entered not guilty pleas in each of the three instances. When Trump won the election, the Justice Department attempted to drop the two federal lawsuits.

There is a pending state criminal prosecution against Trump in Georgia with allegations related to his attempt to reverse his state’s 2020 election defeat.