The historic New York criminal case against Donald Trump — the first of its kind against a former president — closed with a whimper Friday morning, with the president-elect facing no consequences for faking business documents to cover up a sexual affair from American voters in 2016.
“Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances,” Justice Juan Merchan said from the bench. “This has been a truly extraordinary case.”
However, the judge pointed out that the soft landing to such a weighty case was directly due to Trump’s impending return to office — and he reminded Trump that the legal protections sparing him what could have been a more serious sentence, which could have included years in jail, belonged not to a man but to the person who temporarily sits at the White House’s Resolute Desk.
“Ordinary citizens do not receive those legal protections,” Merchan said as he delivered his sentence.
“To be sure, it is the legal protections afforded to the office of the president of the United States that are extraordinary — not the occupant of the office,” he said.
Trump, when he was able to speak from a virtual feed just before sentencing, panned the court.
“This has been a very terrible experience,” he said. “I think it’s been a tremendous setback for New York and the New York court system.”
Trump touted his election victory and went on about his ability to flip swing states.
“It’s been a political witch hunt,” he said of the case. “It was done to damage my reputation so I would lose the election, and obviously, that didn’t work.”
After two years of forcing Trump to appear in court to face 34 felony charges and frequently interrupting his presidential campaign, Merchan opted to let Trump appear via a video feed for his sentencing.
The decision isn’t exactly a shock. In court papers, the judge indicated he would sentence Trump to no jail time, no community service, no additional fines and not even home confinement. Instead, Merchan wrote that he intended to give Trump an “unconditional discharge,” legalese that essentially means a free pass. Merchan called it “the most viable solution to ensure finality,” given that Trump is now busy around the clock with preparing to assume the duties of commander in chief in 10 days.
Given that reality, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. decided to forgo making a sentencing recommendation ahead of Friday — an uncommon move that caps an unprecedented criminal case that threatened to alter the 2024 election and, in the end, seemed to actually bolster Trump’s mission to return to the White House.
Joshua Steinglass, one of the DA’s prosecutors, did not push for more just before sentencing on Friday morning. “Under all the circumstances in this case — its unique posture and the defendant’s stature as president-elect — the people recommend unconditional discharge,” he told the court.
Trump, beaming into the court virtually, maintained a disappointed and annoyed look on his face as the prosecutor spoke about the president-elect’s persistent attack on the court and legal system.
“The defendant has publicly threatened to retaliate against the prosecutors who sought to hold him accountable … such threats are designed to have a chilling effect to intimidate folks who have a responsibility to enforce our laws, in the hopes that they will ignore the defendant’s transgressions because he is simply too powerful,” Steinglass said while standing. “This defendant has caused enduring damage to the public perception of the criminal justice system and put officers of the court in harm’s way.”
Prosecutors noted that the state’s probation report, which was not immediately publicly available, said that Trump “sees himself as above the law.”
Defense attorney Todd Blanche, joining Trump remotely, said he “very, very much” disagreed with the prosecution’s description of the case and Trump’s conduct.
The case was mired in delays with endless bids from Trump’s defense lawyers, who sought to disqualify the judge for alleged bias — citing his small monetary donation to President Joe Biden’s last campaign and his daughter’s Democrat-supporting business — postpone the trial on grounds the judge routinely rejected and overturn the jury conviction by pointing to a post-trial and unrelated Supreme Court opinion that created a legal immunity shield around any president’s actions while in office. The torn-up calendar pushed back the sentencing from its initial date in July, long before the election, to nearly the eve of when Trump reassumes power.
Trump’s multiple, last-minute appeals to cancel Friday’s proceeding went nowhere, with a state appellate court rejecting entreaties to block it and the Supreme Court issuing a bipartisan 5-4 decision refusing to intervene as well.
On Thursday night, Trump took to Truth Social — his preferred method of complaining about the judge, the prosecutors and even the jury throughout the trial — to once again launch attacks.
“I appreciate the time and effort of the United States Supreme Court in trying to remedy the great injustice done to me by the highly conflicted ‘Acting Justice,’ who should not have been allowed to try this case,” he wrote. “There was no case against me. In other words, I am innocent of all of the Judge’s made up, fake charges. This was nothing other than Weaponization of our Justice System against a Political Opponent. It’s called Lawfare, and nothing like this has ever happened in the United States of America, and it should never be allowed to happen again.”
He ended the post with, “The pathetic, dying remnants of the Witch Hunts against me will not distract us as we unite and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
And yet Trump was still given a kind of special treatment, with Merchan deciding that the president-elect can choose not to show up in person on Friday — an option that’s unheard of for the thousands of criminal defendants who make their way through New York’s court system each year.
That meant dozens of journalists stood through freezing blasts of wind outside the Manhattan courthouse for hours early Friday morning while Trump remained home in sunny South Florida as he awaited the hearing. The trial that turned this 15th-floor courtroom into a political hot spot — with frequent visits by members of Congress, governors and conservative celebrities — met a muted end. No notable guests appeared, and the courtroom remained packed solely with the writers and TV correspondents who Trump has repeatedly lambasted as “the enemy of the people.”
The courtroom that remained dingy and dusty throughout the two-month trial, where Trump was forced to sit in a maroon leather chair four days a week and alternated between angry scowls and short naps, now appeared to have its tile floors scrubbed clean and its wooden-panel walls wiped down.
Just before the hearing began, bailiffs did as they’ve done from the start of this case and allowed five news photographers a minute to take pictures of the defense table — only this time Trump wasn’t there.
The hearing lasted less than 40 minutes, with the judge cutting it off immediately after delivering his justification for delivering such a light sentence. The judge reasoned that no punishment was “the only lawful sentence” permitted “without encroaching on the highest office in the land.”
“Donald Trump, the ordinary citizen, Donald Trump the criminal defendant, would not be entitled to such considerable protections,” Merchan said.
“Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume the second term in office. Thank you,” he said, standing up and raising his eyebrows as he exited the courtroom.
A high-pitched ding rang out at 10:07 a.m. as Trump logged off the call.
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Jose Pagliery is a reporter at NOTUS.