The former president didn’t say a word throughout the six weeks that he spent in a Manhattan courtroom last year for his criminal hush money trial.
At the president-elect’s sentencing on Friday, that changed.
After being found guilty of falsifying business records as part of a purported plot to sway the 2016 election by paying off an adult film actress who claimed to have had a long-denied affair with Trump in 2006, three months after his wife gave birth to his youngest son, Trump was initially facing a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
During Friday’s sentencing hearing, Trump, who is now the president-elect, practically appeared in the same courthouse where the trial was held and recited his complaints about the criminal justice system for seven minutes.
He boasted about winning the election, declared his innocence, lambasted his home state and former attorney, compared his experience to a natural disaster, and accused prosecutors of being involved in a political witch hunt.
In light of everything that is going on in our nation right now, including a burning city that is one of our biggest and most significant cities, uncontrollably ongoing wars, inflation issues, international attacks, and other terrible events, Trump said, “I was charged with calling a legal expense a legal expense.”
Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a crime after a turbulent and occasionally humiliating experience that lasted years. The historic hearing was virtually attended by Trump from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Trump said that his electoral victory in November was a political acquittal, arguing that voters’ support for him was a complete rejection of what he called the “weaponization of government.” However, the punishment solidified his status as a convicted criminal.
Because they watched the case in your courtroom, the people of our nation witnessed this firsthand,” Trump declared, vowing to fight the decision. “They got to see this firsthand and then they voted, and I won and got the largest number of votes by far, of any Republican candidate in history.”
Judge Juan Merchan imposed what he claimed was the “only lawful sentence” of an unconditional discharge of Trump because of his electoral triumph and his impending presidential immunity. Trump was given an extraordinary sentence that bore no consequences for his behavior, which allowed him to appeal the decision.
Merchan said that if Trump had been a private man, he would have faced a harsher punishment, but that he had little choice because of the “extraordinary legal protections” that the presidency offered.
It is the president’s office that grants the office holder those extensive protections, and the people of this country recently decided that you should once more enjoy the advantages of those protections, which include presidential immunity and the Supremacy Clause, among other things,” Merchan said.
In a brief last week, Merchan made it plain that although Trump’s options for sentence were limited due to his role as president-elect, this did not alter the fact that a jury of twelve New Yorkers found the former president guilty of what Merchan called a “premeditated and continuous deception.”
Merchan told the judge on Friday that “even though those protections are incredibly broad, one power they do not provide is a power to erase a jury verdict.”
In a prior court filing, Merchan had attacked Trump for his “lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries, and the justice system as a whole” as well as his “disdain for the Third Branch of government.” However, the judge did not specifically criticize Trump at the hearing on Friday.
Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, disagreed. Trump “caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way,” according to the assistant Manhattan DA.
“Instead of preserving, protecting, and defending our constitutionally-established system of criminal justice, the defendant — the once and future president of the United States — has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy,” Steinglass stated.
After interviewing Trump last year, Steinglass claims that the probation officer concluded that Trump “sees himself as above the law and won’t accept responsibility for his actions.” Steinglass noted that Trump made “unrelenting” attacks on the legal system, called the trial crooked and a fraud “too many times to tabulate,” and vowed to retaliate against prosecutors.
Steinglass stated, “The defendant has deliberately fostered contempt for our judicial institutions and the rule of law, and he has done this to serve his own ends and to encourage others to reject the jury verdict that he finds so distasteful,” rather than showing any regret for his unlawful behavior.
Despite all of that, Steinglass claimed that the Manhattan district attorney shared Judge Merchan’s reasoning in recommending against the former president receiving any kind of penalty.
“The American public has the right to a presidency unencumbered by pending court proceedings or ongoing sentence-related obligations,” Steinglass stated.
Merchan concluded the sentencing with a friendly remark to the defendant, who would become the president of the United States in 10 days, 19 months after Trump was accused.
“Godspeed as you begin your second term in office, sir. “Thank you,” said Merchan.
