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MANHATTAN (CN) — President-elect Donald Trump will be sentenced in his hush money case on Jan. 10, just 10 days before his inauguration.
In a stunning 18-page ruling, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan declined Trump’s bid to vacate the jury verdict that found the former and soon-to-be-president guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
But Merchan indicated that he will spare Trump from jail time, ruling that a sentence of unconditional discharge — in which a case is closed without punishment — is the best path forward to preserve Trump’s appellate options and ability to govern.
“While this court as a matter of law must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and defendant, an opportunity to be heard, 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 people concede they no longer view as a practicable recommendation,” Merchan wrote.
It is the “most viable solution,” the judge ruled, given Trump’s impending return to the White House. The sentence would absolve Trump of any tangible punishment, but it would draw to a close the historic case and officially classify the former president as a convicted felon.
It was precisely the outcome that retired New York Judge George Grasso predicted in November, when he told Courthouse News that it was likely the only plausible solution that respects the jury’s verdict.
“This was the best and fairest course of action all the way around,” Grasso told Courthouse News on Friday, acknowledging the need to balance the guilty verdict with Trump’s duties as the commander-in-chief.
Trump disagrees; his communications director Steven Cheung called Merchan’s order “deeply conflicted” and in “direct violation” of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.
“This lawless case should have never been brought and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung told Courthouse News. “President Trump must be allowed to continue the presidential transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the witch hunts. There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead.”
A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, who prosecuted the case, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump had hoped that Merchan would drop the case altogether when he filed a “Clayton motion,” which is a motion to dismiss charges “in the interest of justice.” Citing presidential immunity once more, he claimed that his election victory should prevent the case from moving forward at all.
But the judge was unconvinced, criticizing Trump’s public “disdain” for the judicial system as a factor in denying the motion.
“Indeed, 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 wrote, acknowledging that, in this case, Trump’s history of complaining about the courts “does not weigh in his favor.”
Ultimately, Merchan ruled that vacating the jury’s verdict “would not serve the concerns set forth by the Supreme Court in its handful of cases addressing presidential immunity nor would it serve the rule of law.”
Should the sentencing go ahead as planned on Jan. 10 — Trump’s attorneys could ask an appellate court for an emergency pause — it is possible that Trump appears virtually. Merchan is giving Trump the option to phone it in to address the president-elect’s “concerns regarding the mental and physical demands during this transition period.”
The historic case came to a head in May when a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, which were part of a broader scheme from Trump to nullify bad press related to his 2016 presidential campaign by paying hush money to a porn star he had sex with a decade earlier.
Trump is the first president, current or former, in U.S. history to be charged with or found guilty of a crime.
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