Donald Trump was given an unconditional discharge in the sentencing for his New York hush-money conviction but will still enter the White House as a convicted felon – a first in the US.
An unconditional discharge in New York State law allows for a convicted person to be let go “without imprisonment, fine or probation supervision" in cases where "no proper purpose would be served by imposing any condition upon the defendant’s release".
But the discharge on Friday formalises the conviction.
New York Judge Juan Merchan said it was a "truly extraordinary case" before issuing the sentence to Mr Trump, who appeared in court via video link from Florida.
"This has been a very terrible experience and a set back for the New York court system," Mr Trump told the court, said news reporters who were in the courtroom. He also insisted on his innocence and challenged the basis of the case and work by judges.
A jury last May found Mr Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business documents that covered up payments to people who claimed they had scandalous stories during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Stormy Daniels, an adult film performer, was paid $130,000 by Mr Trump's fixer in exchange for compliance in a non-disclosure agreement as part of the hush-money scheme at the centre of the case. Prosecutors argued that Mr Trump's attempts to hide the payments violated New York election law.
The scheme also included National Enquirer payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and a Trump property doorman on behalf of the Republican leader.
Mr Trump became the first US president to be convicted of a crime.
"The Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt," he said in a Truth Social post after the sentencing.
He added that the unconditional release on the "baseless, illegal, and fake charges" was a loss for his opponents, but it was one he would appeal.
The Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, rejected an emergency request to stay Friday's sentencing the night before the hearing. The justices ruled the sentencing was not a legal burden and Mr Trump can still appeal.
Falsifying business records carries a sentence of up to four years in prison, although jail time was unlikely given Mr Trump was a first-time offender. However, his gag order violations against Mr Merchan's orders did threaten jail time.
But with Mr Trump's electoral victory and his inauguration in 10 days, Mr Merchan viewed a jail sentence or probation as not "practicable".
The judge suggested in court that the sentencing may have been different if Mr Trump was an ordinary defendant, but "legal protections afforded to the office of the president" forced a legal mandate for the court to follow.
"Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase jury verdicts,” Mr Merchan said.
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UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
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Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
PULITZER PRIZE 2020 WINNERS
JOURNALISM
Public Service
Anchorage Daily News in collaboration with ProPublica
Breaking News Reporting
Staff of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.
Investigative Reporting
Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times
Explanatory Reporting
Staff of The Washington Post
Local Reporting
Staff of The Baltimore Sun
National Reporting
T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica
and
Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb of The Seattle Times
International Reporting
Staff of The New York Times
Feature Writing
Ben Taub of The New Yorker
Commentary
Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times
Criticism
Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times
Editorial Writing
Jeffery Gerritt of the Palestine (Tx.) Herald-Press
Editorial Cartooning
Barry Blitt, contributor, The New Yorker
Breaking News Photography
Photography Staff of Reuters
Feature Photography
Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of the Associated Press
Audio Reporting
Staff of This American Life with Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and Emily Green, freelancer, Vice News for “The Out Crowd”
LETTERS AND DRAMA
Fiction
"The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Drama
"A Strange Loop" by Michael R. Jackson
History
"Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America" by W. Caleb McDaniel (Oxford University Press)
Biography
"Sontag: Her Life and Work" by Benjamin Moser (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Poetry
"The Tradition" by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)
General Nonfiction
"The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care" by Anne Boyer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
and
"The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America" by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan Books)
Music
"The Central Park Five" by Anthony Davis, premiered by Long Beach Opera on June 15, 2019
Special Citation
Ida B. Wells
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
