Before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House he will return to the courthouse, a New York judge ruled Friday.
Justice Juan Merchan will sentence Trump for his crimes on Jan. 10, a court proceeding that will be unlike any in America’s 248 years. Trump’s conviction in New York stemmed from a $130,000 so-called “hush money” payment his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 election.
Justice Juan Merchan’s ruling ends two months of speculation — and back and forth jockeying by Trump’s attorneys and prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — following Trump’s narrow election victory on Nov. 5.
Trump became the first former president ever convicted of crimes in May, when a unanimous jury found him guilty in the New York case. Sentencing in the case was stalled for months as Trump campaigned for a return to the presidency. In November, he became the first person voted into the White House after a criminal conviction.
The president-elect had argued in a motion to dismiss that his ascension to the White House mandated his conviction be vacated. Merchan said Friday that it did not.
“This court finds that neither the vacatur of the jury’s verdicts nor dismissal of the indictment are required by the Presidential immunity doctrine, the Presidential Transition Act or the Supremacy Clause,” Merchan wrote in his order Friday.
Merchan indicated in his ruling that Trump will not be sentenced to serve time behind bars. He wrote that prosecutors agree with this decision. He also said that Trump may appear virtually, rather than in person for the sentencing.
“It seems proper at this juncture to make known the court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration, a sentence authorized by the conviction but one the (prosecutors) concede they no longer view as a practicable recommendation,” Merchan wrote.
Trump’s lawyers claimed the constitutional demands on a president-elect “superseded” the jury’s decision and ongoing proceedings in the case.
Bragg’s office argued that the judge had a range of options, including “novel” ones to balance the interests of justice with the unprecedented circumstance of a convicted defendant being elected to the presidency before sentencing. Their suggestions included postponing proceedings until after Trump’s term in office, and even terminating the case and its proceedings with a note that the verdict had not been set aside.
Trump’s conviction carried with it the potential for up to four years in jail, but also a wide range of alternatives to incarceration, including probation and fines.
Merchan’s decision is the latest in a string of historical firsts set by the case. Trump’s indictment in March 2023 made him the first former president in U.S. history to be criminally charged. He was subject to a seven-week trial this spring, which took place during the Republican presidential primaries.
Inside the courtroom, Trump grumbled quietly, but often leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed as prosecutors and lawyers questioned more than 20 witnesses. At times his head drooped down, as he apparently dozed off. In the hallway just outside the courtroom — surrounded by a rotating posse of Republican allies, lawyers and Secret Service agents — Trump seethed about the case while campaigning to a gaggle of press cameras.
At times, his dual commitments to the court and the cameras caused trouble. Merchan held Trump in contempt 10 times for violating a gag order prohibiting public statements about potential jurors, witnesses and others.
Witnesses, beginning with former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, described two schemes at the core of the case. The first was a plan hatched by Trump, Pecker and former attorney Michael Cohen to “catch” stories or allegations that might hurt Trump’s 2016 presidential candidacy and “kill” them by paying people in exchange for nondisclosure agreements. Pecker and others described three such arrangements, known as “hush money” payments.
Days before the election, Cohen paid $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels — also a witness in the trial — in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. He and another witness described Trump’s relief that voters didn’t learn of the story before the election.
Cohen also described an arrangement in which he was covertly reimbursed for the payment to Daniels. The jury concluded Trump, while president in 2017, authorized a scheme to falsify business records in order to conceal Cohen’s repayment. That scheme ultimately included 34 falsified records connected to monthly installments portrayed as payments for ongoing legal services, when they were in fact Cohen’s reimbursements for the Daniels payoff.
The jury took less than two days to reach its verdict. Trump, who had frequently stared at the jury of his peers during the trial, would not make eye contact with them as his sentence was pronounced.
He looked straight ahead as the jury’s foreperson pronounced Trump guilty 34 times, and as Merchan thanked the jury for their service before allowing them to file out of the room.
After Merchan himself stepped out, Trump rose, frowning deeply, and briefly grasped his son Eric’s hand.
Trump led his entourage out of the courtroom, huddled for a moment with his lawyers, and then turned to address the cameras awaiting his reaction.
He proclaimed his innocence, raged against the case and returned to his campaign for president.
