The sentence ends Trump’s sentence and ends a shameful chapter in his return to the White House

During the six weeks that Donald Trump spent in a Manhattan courtroom for his criminal hush money At last year’s trial, the former president never officially said a word.

That changed Friday with the president-elect’s sentencing.

Trump originally faced up to four years in prison after being convicted of falsifying business records as part of an alleged scheme to influence the 2016 election by paying an adult film actress who said she had a long-denied affair with Trump in 2006, three months. after his wife gave birth to their youngest son.

Trump, now president-elect, appeared in practically the same room where the trial took place and took advantage of Friday’s sentencing hearing to unleash a seven minute recitation of their complaints with the criminal justice system.

He proclaimed his innocence, boasted about his election victory, accused prosecutors of engaging in a political witch hunt, criticized his former lawyer and his home state, and compared his experience to an ongoing natural disaster.

“With everything that is happening in our country today, with a city that is burning to the ground – one of our largest and most important cities burning to the ground – with wars that are developing uncontrollably, with all the problems of inflation and attacks on countries and all the horrible things that are happening, they accused me of calling a legal expense a legal expense,” Trump said.

He unprecedented audience — which Trump attended virtually from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida — capped a tumultuous and at times embarrassing year-long experience that led to him becoming the first former president to be criminally convicted. While the sentence cemented his status as a convicted felon, Trump suggested his election victory in November amounted to a political acquittal, asserting that voters’ support for him was a complete rejection of what he called the “militarization of government.”

“The people of our country were able to see this firsthand because they saw the case in the courtroom,” said Trump, who vowed to appeal the verdict. “They got to see this firsthand and then they voted, and I won and got the most votes, by far, of any Republican candidate in history.”

Due to Trump’s electoral victory and his upcoming presidential immunity, Judge Juan Merchán imposed what he said was the “only legal sentence” of unconditional freedom. The unusual sentence, which carried no punishment for Trump’s actions, finalized the ruling against Trump, allowing him to appeal.

Merchan suggested that Trump would have received a harsher sentence if he had been a private citizen, but that the “extraordinary legal protections” provided by the office of the presidency left him no other options.

“It is the office of the president that grants those far-reaching protections to the office holder, and it was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that you should once again receive the benefits of those protections, including, among other things, the Supremacy Clause and presidential immunity,” Merchan said.

But Merchan was clear that while Trump’s status as president-elect limited his sentencing options, it did not change the fact that a jury of twelve New Yorkers convicted the former president of what Merchan described in a filing last week as a “hoax premeditated and continuous.” “.

“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury’s verdict,” Merchan said in the courtroom Friday.

Merchan had previously criticized Trump in a court filing for his “disdain for the Third Branch of government” and “lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and the justice system as a whole.” But the judge refrained from explicitly criticizing Trump during Friday’s hearing.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass thought otherwise. The Manhattan assistant district attorney said Trump “caused lasting damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has put court officials in harm’s way.”

“Instead of preserving, protecting and defending our constitutionally established criminal justice system, the defendant, the former and future president of the United States, has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy,” Steinglass said.

According to Steinglass, the probation officer who interviewed Trump last year found that Trump “views himself as above the law and will not accept responsibility for his actions.” Steinglass noted that Trump threatened retaliation against prosecutors, criticized the trial as corrupt and a sham “too many times to tabulate” and launched “relentless” attacks on the justice system.

“Far from expressing any remorse for his criminal conduct, the defendant has deliberately generated disdain for our judicial institutions and the rule of law, and has done so to serve his own ends and encourage others to reject the jury’s verdict that considered so unpleasant,” Steinglass said.

Despite all this, Steinglass said the Manhattan district attorney recommended against any punishment for the former president, adopting the same reasoning as Judge Merchan.

“The American public has the right to a presidency free of pending judicial proceedings or obligations related to ongoing sentencing,” Steinglass said.

Nineteen months after Trump was impeached, Merchan ended the sentence with a kind comment to the defendant who in ten days would become president of the United States.

“Sir, I wish you good luck as you assume your second term. Thank you,” Merchan said.