Donald Trump Sentenced In Historic New York Hush Money Trial

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to be sentenced at a Friday hearing with New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, putting an end to his hush money trial more than seven months after his unprecedented conviction.

The extraordinary case reached a high-water mark in May last year, when a panel of a dozen New Yorkers found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts and made him the first convicted felon to have served as president.

However, his original sentencing date — July 11 — was delayed by a Supreme Court decision expanding the definition of presidential immunity. The landmark ruling allowed Trump’s team to lob new defenses against the prosecution and, critically, delay his sentencing until after the election.

Trump’s attorneys fought the case tooth and nail every step of the way, arguing repeatedly to have it thrown out. Last month, attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove laid out an 80-page argument that continuing the proceedings would be a distraction for their client, impeding both his presidential transition and his ability to serve as president.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, argued in turn that Trump’s conviction must stand in the interest of justice. But Bragg conceded that jail time was no longer practical given Trump’s imminent return to the White House.

Trump was never likely to serve a long time behind bars given he was convicted on low-level felonies and has no previous criminal record. He faced a maximum penalty of four years’ imprisonment.

Merchan determined that, contrary to Trump’s claims, the period between his election and inauguration on Jan. 20 afforded him no special protections; rather, presidential immunity would kick in the moment he took the oath of office. And so last week, the judge ordered Trump to appear for sentencing — virtually, if he liked.

Bragg’s hush money case seemingly constitutes the only criminal charges to stick to Trump thus far, although he is expected to exhaust the appeals process. Two federal cases — one for Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and another for allegedly mishandling classified documents — were discontinued after his election. Another state-level case, in Georgia, has stalled amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

Trump’s trial centered on a payment made to silence claims of an alleged affair in the final, chaotic days of the 2016 presidential election. But the criminal element was all in the cover-up.

Over the course of around five weeks’ worth of witness testimony, prosecutors showed the jury how Trump’s then–personal attorney, Michael Cohen, wired $130,000 to porn actor Stormy Daniels because she was threatening to tell a magazine that she had sex with Trump during a Lake Tahoe golf championship in 2006.

Cohen fronted the money. At the time, Trump’s campaign was teetering on collapse in the wake of the “Access Hollywood” scandal. The Washington Post had obtained a recording of Trump telling one of the show’s hosts, Billy Bush, that his fame permitted him to sexually assault women without consequence. Trump would survive the scandal — as he has survived many others since — but at the time, it was far less clear whether he would.

Cohen hounded Trump for repayment, both for the hush money and other campaign-related expenses totaling $150,000. Along with Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, the trio ultimately settled on a plan for Trump to reimburse Cohen in monthly installments over the course of his first year in the White House.

On official business records, the payments were described as legal expenses.

Bragg’s office successfully argued that was wrong. The true purpose of the repayments, prosecutors said, was to influence the 2016 presidential election by preventing unsavory information about Trump from getting out to voters.

Much of the trial’s witness testimony painted a portrait of Trump when he was less a fixture of national politics and more a fixture of the National Enquirer.

Trump had long palled around with the tabloid’s publisher, American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker, who testified that he was Trump’s “eyes and ears” during his first presidential run. Pecker published negative stories about Trump’s enemies, glowing stories about Trump himself, and he let Cohen know when somebody was shopping a harmful story around to magazines. The concept of “catch and kill” — “catching” a story by buying the rights and “killing” it by never publishing — was key to the case.

At the time, Cohen was still Trump’s faithful sidekick, howling curse words at anyone who did wrong by his boss. Some of the trial’s most emotional testimony came when Cohen took the stand to describe how he eventually decided to turn on Trump, after the FBI tore apart his home and office looking for evidence of the hush money payment in 2018.

“My wife, my daughter, my son all said to me: ‘Why are you holding on to this loyalty? What are you doing?’” Cohen testified. “It was about time to listen to them.”

Other people who took the stand included young former White House staffers who were around when Trump signed Cohen’s checks, and publishing house representatives who shared excerpts from Trump’s books illuminating how closely he oversaw his expenses.

Doubtlessly the most salacious testimony shared at trial came from Daniels.

Although prosecutors discouraged the porn actor from giving too many details of her alleged sexual encounter with Trump, she veered into the weeds more than once, going so far as to reveal which position the two used for sex.

Among her other recollections: Trump said Daniels reminded him of his daughter, he talked about himself until she told him he was being rude, and he did not wear a condom. Daniels said she felt coerced into sex, although she emphasized how she does not consider herself a victim.

A gag order prevented Trump from expressing the full extent of his anger toward Cohen, Daniels, prosecutors and other figures during the trial, as Merchan sought to shield them from harassment by Trump’s supporters.

Much of what he did say publicly was not true. Trump has claimed at varying points that because one of the prosecuting attorneys recently worked for the Justice Department, it meant that President Joe Biden had a direct hand in Bragg’s case, which is false. He claimed, falsely, that every prominent legal scholar in the country agreed with him that the case was “illegitimate,” “nonexistent” or “fake.” He also said that his gag order barred him from criticizing Merchan when it did not — Merchan specifically left himself off the list.

At one point, Trump was held in contempt of court and fined $9,000 for attacking people or subjects that were covered by the gag order. Trump posted less frequently to social media about the trial after that.

Still, every day, he left the courtroom to stand in front of cameras set up in the hall and rant about the proceedings.

The one place he did not speak was on the witness stand.

Trump, amid much speculation, opted not to testify in his own defense during the trial.

He was under no obligation to do so; it arguably would have been disastrous.