Donald Trump’s legal odyssey entered uncharted waters on Friday when he became the first president in the history of the United States to be recorded as a convicted felon when he was sentenced to an unconditional discharge.
The hearing took place in the same Manhattan courthouse that had played scene to a vast media circus and public displays of support and protest during Trump’s “hush money” trial last spring.
Trump was convicted then on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she said she had had with Trump, who denied it.
Justice Juan Merchan did not require the president-elect to attend in person for his sentencing on Friday, and the conclusion was brief and subdued.
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Trump observed the proceedings and spoke through a video link from his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. He listened stonily to the summing up by chief prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, flanked by his attorney Todd Blanche, with a backdrop of the stars-and-stripes flag.
Trump sat back with his arms folded and shook his head as the prosecutor said the defendant had been “far from expressing any kind of remorse for his criminal conduct” and had been “unrelenting in his unsubstantiated attack on this court”, and had tried to “encourage others to reject this verdict”.
“This defendant has caused enduring damage to the public perception of the criminal justice system,” Mr Steinglass said.
The defence team, led by Mr Blanche, will appeal the decision and argued on Friday that a “majority of the American people also believe that this case should not have been brought”, before telling the court it was “a very sad day for President Trump and his family”.
Trump had the option of speaking on his own behalf. Unsurprisingly, he used it. “This has been a very terrible experience and a setback for the New York court system. This is a case that [Manhattan district attorney] Alvin Bragg did not want to bring. Legal fees were put down as legal expenses by accountants. They weren’t put down by me,” he said, warming to a theme redolent of his daily post-trial remarks last April, and again namechecking his former fixer turned nemesis Cohen, who was a crucial witness in the case.
“It is the legal protections afforded to the office of the president of the United States which are extraordinary, not the occupant of the office,” Justice Merchan said in summing up.
“But they do not reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way. One power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” he said, before giving Trump an unconditional discharge and leaving the bench.
The prosecution lawyers in the courtroom on Center Street began packing their documents and the screen in Mar a-Lago went dark. It was 10.07am: the moment that Trump’s status of felon was made official, a status which the president-elect’s legal team are set to appeal.
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The moment brought Trump back to the low point of his election campaign when he was found guilty in the “hush money” case and faced other federal charges. All of those have melted away now but the sentencing is a blemish – at least until the appellate process – as he prepares to take office.
Justice Merchan wished the president-elect “Godspeed” and then left the bench, ending the saga. The judge had other courts to run, the convicted man, a country.
