Trump endures embarrassment of criminal sentencing just 10 days before taking office

CNN

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

(CNN) — The Supreme Court didn’t help Donald Trump … this time.

The court’s 5-4 decision Thursday to deny the president-elect’s last-minute effort to delay sentencing in his New York hush money case set up a stunning moment in court on Friday morning, just 10 days before Trump will be sworn in for a second term.

Judge Juan Merchan had already said he wouldn’t impose a jail term, and in sentencing Trump on Friday morning to an unconditional discharge, he noted the unique circumstances.

“To be sure, it is the legal protections afforded to the office of the president of the United States that are extraordinary, not the occupant of the office,” Merchan said, noting that those protections “do not reduce the seriousness of the crime.”

The hearing underscored that Trump will be the first president to take office with a criminal conviction written into his official record.

The proximity of the sentencing to Trump’s inauguration creates a stunning juxtaposition. A defendant who was subject to the authority of a judge and a jury verdict will within days assume the vast powers of the presidency and become the ultimate guardian of the nation’s laws and the Constitution.

“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” Merchan said. “Donald Trump, the ordinary citizen, Donald Trump, the criminal defendant, would not be entitled to such considerable protections.”

The word “unprecedented” has been worn into a cliche by the unbelievable twists and turns of Trump’s life, his presidential campaigns and first White House term. But he made another head-spinning slice of history on Friday, after a campaign in which he defied four criminal indictments to win a second term.

Trump did not appear in person but joined virtually from his home in Florida, from which he addressed the court, showing zero contrition and calling the case “a very terrible experience” and saying, “I’m totally innocent.”

Trump attacks the case and the judge

Trump’s remarks before the court were a familiar litany of grievances and attacks on everyone involved in the case.

“It’s been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation, so that I’d lose the election and obviously that didn’t work. And the people of our country got to see this first-hand,” Trump said, “and then they voted and I won.”

Despite fighting to block the hearing, Trump’s legal team believes it’s a significant victory, that after being convicted of 34 felonies, their client will only get an unconditional discharge, which is less than the penalty for a speeding ticket, a source familiar with their thinking told CNN’s Paula Reid.

The lawyers also see the sentencing as “checking a box” so that they can appeal his conviction, the source said.

But the defeat at the Supreme Court that allowed the sentencing to go forward was a rare reversal for Trump’s strategy of seeking to delay his criminal cases with multiple appeals – which he used in his federal cases to buy time until he could use his executive authority to thwart them. Of course, for this to work he had to live up to his end of the bargain and win the election.

Had the Supreme Court ruled the other way on this case, it would have emboldened critics who argue the court facilitated Trump’s attempts to delay accountability after taking weeks to rule on his claims of sweeping immunity last year and then awarding him significant protection for official acts. That decision slowed the federal cases, allowing him to succeed in preventing trials from taking place before the election.

Thursday’s ruling – in which two conservatives sided with liberal justices – may in some small measure reassure those who believed that the court’s decisions had challenged the idea that every American, no matter their position in life, is equal before the law. But it will not quell the widespread anxiety among liberals that the conservative majority Trump built in his first term will show considerable deference to the commander in chief in a second administration that may test the rule of law and the Constitution more than his first.

The president-elect also attacked Merchan after the Supreme Court’s decision came down Thursday evening. “We’re going to appeal anyway, just psychologically, because frankly it’s a disgrace. It’s a judge that shouldn’t have been on the case,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club. “So I’ll do my little thing tomorrow, they can have fun with their political opponent … this is a long way from finished.”

The president-elect registered fury and disbelief about his plight during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago earlier this week, when he seemed preoccupied with the looming sentencing’s impact on his dignity.

“I’m the president-elect of the United States of America. I’m a former, very successful president,” Trump said, complaining that he was a victim of a “judge working real hard to try and embarrass” him.

Trump may not have needed any more incentive to use his powers as president to avenge what he claims is the weaponization of justice against him. But the sentencing could freshen his sense of grievance just before he takes power.

Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records over payments to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels in order to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair before the 2016 election. Trump pleaded not guilty in the case and has denied the affair.

Two conservatives join the liberals

The two conservatives who joined the liberals were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was appointed by Trump in his first term. Roberts will see Trump face-to-face on Inauguration Day on January 20 as he’s expected to preside over the swearing in. Four other conservatives would have granted Trump’s request to delay sentencing, including Justice Samuel Alito, who faced Democratic calls to recuse himself after a recent phone call with Trump on what he said was an unrelated matter.

The majority held that neither of the grounds for a stay had merit, saying that Trump’s complaints about alleged evidentiary violations could be handled in the ordinary course of his appeals. It also disregarded the claim of Trump’s lawyers that sentencing would impose a burden on his responsibilities as president-elect.

In another unusual twist in a staggering legal saga, Trump has picked two of his lawyers who filed the appeal to the top bench, Todd Blanche and D. John Sauer, to serve as deputy attorney general and solicitor general, respectively, in his new administration.

The hush money case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was long regarded as the weakest of the four criminal matters that Trump faced in the run-up to the election, but it was the only one to reach a conclusion.

• US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed the federal election interference case against Trump after special counsel Jack Smith concluded, in line with Justice Department guidance after November’s election, that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.
• Smith’s other prosecution of Trump – over alleged hoarding of classified documents at his Florida home – foundered after Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, dismissed the case by ruling his appointment as special counsel violated the Constitution. Trump this week praised Cannon as “very brilliant” and “tough.”
• A fourth prosecution, over alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia, is in limbo after an appeals court disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over appearances of impropriety over her past romantic relationship with one of her fellow prosecutors on the case.

Thursday’s decision may not end Trump’s business before a Supreme Court that has repeatedly been called into action to address the constitutional questions raised during and after a first administration that shattered norms of presidential conduct.

That’s because the president-elect lost another legal battle on Thursday after a federal appeals court declined to block the Justice Department from releasing Smith’s final investigative report.

The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals left a three-day hold on the DOJ’s release of the report, which could allow time for more appeals.

Trump is expected, yet again, to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in.

This story and headline have been updated to reflect Trump’s sentencing Friday morning.

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