President Trump was released on an “unconditional discharge” on Friday morning at a sentencing hearing for his conviction in the long running hush-money case, and became the first ever president in the U.S. history to be sentenced in a criminal case and become a convicted felon. Trump did not attend the hearing in person. He appeared virtually from Florida. He can now appeal the conviction and has sworn to do so. 

Speaking to the court, the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, said he would not sentence Trump to any prison time or probation but that the jury’s verdict was nevertheless a serious one. He added that he must take into account aggravating and mitigating factors as well as the facts of the case.

“Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances,” he said.

The scene in the courtroom had been tense and anticipatory, even though Trump was not physically present.

He was visible on a video screen via Microsoft Teams, a Zoom-like product, sitting next to his defense attorney Todd Blanche in front of a bank of American flags. At the defense table in the New York courtroom, sitting by himself, was defense attorney Emil Bove, while a large team of prosecutors crowded the prosecution’s table. The pool photographers took pictures of the video screen. Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who brought the case against Trump, sat in the second row, accompanied by several of his press aides. Judge Merchan entered his courtroom at 9:34 am.

Joshua Steinglass, an assistant district attorney, who had held a Wagner-like, five-hour long closing statement, addressed the court, saying that Trump being sentenced “cements …. status as a convicted felon” for the president elect and “gives full respect to the jury’s verdict.”

He defended his case, saying his team had presented “an overwhelming amount of evidence,” which he said he was “certainly not going to rehash” now. Mr. Steinglass also addressed Trump, saying that the president elect, instead of “protecting” the justice system, had instead “engaged in a coordinated campaign to question its legitimacy.” 

“This defendant has used dangerous rhetoric,” Mr. Steinglass said as Trump watched his opponent from the screen on the table, “and threatened to retaliate against the prosecution and the courts … Such threats are designed to have a chilling effect, to intimidate,” Mr. Steinglass said, as he leaned over the table. 

Speaking on behalf on the district attorney, Mr. Steinglass said the prosecution agreed that a sentence of unconditional discharge is the most appropriate under the given and unusual circumstance that the defendant is about to assume the office of the presidency. 

Mr. Blanche, sitting next to Trump, patiently waited until Mr. Steinglass had finished. “I very much disagree with much about this case,” Mr. Blanche began, “about the legitimacy, about what happened in this courtroom, and about President Trump’s conduct.”

“It’s a sad day,” he went on. “It’s a sad day for President Trump and for his family, but it’s also a sad day for this country … I hope that this will never happen again in this country.”

He concluded by saying that his team “very much” intends “on pursuing an appeal of this verdict.”   

Then Trump, who had been looking down a lot, seemingly jotting down notes or looking at his phone, lifted his head and addressed the court and the reporters. 

“This has been a very terrible experience,” the president elect said, “a tremendous setback for New York and its court system.” Trump repeated what he has been saying since he was indicted in the case in April 2023, that the case was politically motivated and brought by his “opponent” President Biden and the Justice Department.   

“The DOJ is very involved … You have a gentleman, who is sitting there,” Trump said, referring to Michael Colangelo, who was seated with the other prosecutors. Mr. Colangelo had previously worked in the Biden Justice Department before joining the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in December of 2022 as senior counsel in the criminal case against Trump.  

“I got indicted for calling a legal expense a legal expense,” Trump said about the case, where he was accused of having falsified business records in an attempt to influence the 2016 election. 

After Trump listed numerous legal experts, who agreed with him that the case should not “never have been brought” — among them Sun contributor Alan Dershowitz — he concluded his statement by saying he was treated “very, very unfairly” but that he “won the election in a landslide.” 

Judge Merchan also took the opportunity, like Trump and Mr. Steinglass, to express his feelings about the historic trial before he issued the sentence. He thanked the court staff and the court officers, who had worked diligently to protect the proceedings.  And he said to Trump,  “Godspeed as you assume a second term in office,” before he released him on the unconditional discharge. 

The sentence is something of a compromise that takes into account that Trump is now president elect — with the voters having ultimately delivered their verdict that the 34 felony convictions were hardly disqualifying — but that his conviction was still meaningful. Though he will not have any concrete penalty, his enshrinement as a convicted felon is a victory for Mr. Bragg.

Judge Merchan said last week that granting Trump an “unconditional discharge” seems to be the most “viable solution,” which means Trump will still be convicted of the crimes, but will not have any penalties levied against him. Convicted felon status can be a serious punishment in itself for defendants without wealth, power or housing who need a job, a loan, or a place to live, but for someone like Trump, who owns his own business, real estate and hotels all over the world, and who holds elective office, the status is embarrassing but not impactive.

Nevertheless, Trump fought hard in the courts to stop the sentencing, which took place only ten days before the inauguration. On Thursday evening, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s last-ditch-request to pause the sentencing, ruling five to four with two conservative justices, Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, siding with the three liberal judges.  

A few hours later, Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that “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.” Trump was referring to Judge Merchan, whom he has repeatedly called a biased and politically motivated judge. 

“To this day, this highly political and corrupt Judge has put a gag order on me, which takes away my First Amendment right to speak about very important aspects of the case,” he complained. 

Several weeks before the historic trial, the first ever criminal trial brought against a former and now future president in American history, began last year, Judge Merchan imposed a limited gag order on Trump, prohibiting him from “making or directing others to make public statements” about witnesses, jurors, counsel, court staff and their family members. It did not include the judge himself nor the district attorney, nor their families.

The restriction came after the prosecution had submitted evidence that Trump supporters were making violent threats against participants in the case who Trump had publicly criticized. 

But then the judge extended the gag to protect his own family members and those of the district attorney, after Trump verbally attacked his adult daughter, Loren Merchan, a Democratic operative at the marketing firm Authentic Campaigns that does campaign work for Democrats, such as Vice President Harris. The founder of Authentic Campaigns, Mike Nellis, also founded “White Dudes for Harris.”    

Judge Merchan was also exposed as having given very small amounts of money to Democrats, including President Biden. A review panel of judges found that the donations were inappropriate, but not sufficiently egregious as to mandate his recusal from the Trump case. Trump’s legal team repeatedly sought Judge Merchan’s recusal, but the judge refused.

During the trial Judge Merchan held Trump in contempt of court for violating the gag order, and fined him a total of $9,000 for repeated violations. Trump and his attorneys strenuously fought the gag order, which will likely come up in their appeal of the conviction.

The trial lasted six weeks and heard from 22 witnesses, ranging from people who worked at the Trump Organization to star witnesses like the adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, and Trump’s one-time personal lawyer and so-called “fixer,” Michael Cohen, whom Hope Hicks, Trump’s former White House communications director, who also testified, described as a “Mr. Fix-it … But it was only because he first broke it.”

The prosecution alleged that in 2016, Cohen made a hush-money payment when he wired $130,000 to Ms. Clifford, two weeks before the presidential election. According to the prosecution, Cohen was ordered to issue that payment by Trump, then a presidential candidate. The prosecution further accused Trump of wanting to silence Ms. Clifford and stop her from publicizing a onetime sexual encounter she claims she had with Trump during a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe a decade earlier. Trump denies ever having had sex with Ms. Clifford and denies instructing Cohen to pay her. 

After Trump became president, the prosecution alleged, he reimbursed Cohen, but fraudulently disguised the payment as a legal expense, precisely into eleven invoices, eleven checks and twelve ledger entries, or 34 allegedly falsified records, which Mr. Bragg, listed as the 34 felony charges. His prosecutors argued that the falsification of the business records was designed to interfere with the 2016 election, thereby raising what would have been misdemeanors to felonies.   

Throughout the trial, the defense argued extensively that Cohen had acted on his own accord, because he was worried Ms. Clifford’s allegation would hurt Trump’s election campaign, especially after the notorious “Access Hollywood” tape had been leaked to the public with just weeks to go before the election, throwing Cohen, Trump’s longtime “fixer,” into sheer panic. On that tape, Trump can famously be heard telling television host Billy Bush that women flock to famous men, allowing them to “grab them by the p—.” But in his closing argument, Mr. Blanche said of the audio that Trump “never thought it was going to cause him to lose the campaign, and indeed it didn’t.”

In May 2024, the jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony accounts. His son, Eric Trump, was the only family member present in the courtroom. After the hearing had ended, Trump stood up and turned to his son and shook his hand.   

“This is long from over,” Trump told reporters in the courthouse hallway on the day of the verdict. “This was a rigged decision right from day one, with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case, never. And we’ll keep fighting, we’ll fight ’til the end and we’ll win … We will fight for our Constitution.”  

In the hours after his conviction, Trump and the GOP raised almost $53 million for his campaign.