A New York Judge Forces Trump to Live With His Disgrace

There will be no sentence, except for a permanent stain.

By JONATHAN ALTER
Dec. 31, 2024

On Friday, the judge in the Trump felony trial signaled what he will do with Donald Trump when he sentences him on Jan. 10, just 10 days before Trump takes the oath as president.

Justice Juan Merchan will simultaneously let Trump off scot-free and give him a life sentence as a felon.

Rather than delay sentencing until Trump leaves office in 2029, as the prosecution recommends, Merchan said in his ruling that it’s important to “ensure finality” in the case, in which Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal scheme to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and interfere in the 2016 election.

So Merchan is opting for an “unconditional discharge,” which means no jail, probation or fines. Once Trump was re-elected, jail was no longer a serious option. It may never have been, given his age and status as a first-time offender. (About one-fifth of all those convicted of falsifying business records serve time.) Probation isn’t practical for a president of the United States. And the judge is limited by law in what he can fine Trump, as he was when he fined him only $10,000 for repeatedly violating his gag order during the trial.

Merchan said this rare, extremely light sentence is “the most viable solution” to “allow Defendant to pursue his appellate options.”

And pursue them Trump will. His problem is that those options aren’t good ones. His lawyers’ appeals to get Merchan thrown off the case for bias have repeatedly failed in New York appellate court, and they have submitted zero evidence of the “jury misconduct” they allege.

Like most judges, Merchan is a big believer in the sanctity of jury verdicts. Deference to the jury, he wrote, is a “bedrock principle” of the law. And he logically demolished Trump’s many motions to dismiss, especially his newly concocted claim that the president-elect — still a private citizen — deserves some special dispensation.

Merchan referred to an earlier ruling in which he found that “no official-acts evidence was admitted at trial,” which renders Trump’s claims of immunity under the Supreme Court’s landmark decision “meritless.” The court has been carrying water for Trump lately but Merchan — who is clearly tired of Trump’s “baseless” and “irresponsible” attacks on him — included a footnote in his ruling from Chief Justice John Roberts’ 2024 Year End Report that does not bode well for the president-elect:

“Public officials, too, regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges — for example, suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations,” Roberts wrote. “Attempts to intimidate judges for their rulings in cases are inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed.”

Ouch. Without mentioning any names, Roberts was clearly referring to Trump’s habit of trash-talking judges, including Merchan. The Supreme Court has not been eager to hear Trump’s appeals and with no real sentence to contend with, it’s hard to see why the justices would agree to take a case involving what Trump’s lawyers vaguely call “unconstitutional and unacceptable diversions and distractions from President Trump’s effort to lead the nation.”

So Trump will probably have to live out his years as a felon — a life sentence of disgrace that will stain the honors of high office. It’s not the punishment he deserves, but it’ll do.