The president-elect declared his innocence and decried the case as a political ‘witch-hunt.’
President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced in New York on Jan. 10, more than six months after being found guilty by a Manhattan jury of falsifying business records. When speaking in court for the first time, he declared his innocence.
Justice Juan Merchan sentenced Trump to unconditional release, which means he will not face any prison time or penalties. In handing down the sentence, Merchan noted that Trump is the president-elect and will soon take office.
Although Trump fought the sentencing in court, Merchan could have sentenced him to up to four years in prison.
In May 2024, Trump was found guilty by a Manhattan jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to payments made during the 2016 election campaign to a woman who claimed she had an affair with him about a decade earlier. He pleaded not guilty and categorically denied the affair allegations, stressing that the payments were merely recorded as legal expenses.
Trump Speaks During Sentencing
The president-elect provided comments during Friday’s sentencing hearing, appearing virtually via Microsoft Teams, a video chat conferencing service. His attorney who appeared next to him, Todd Blanche, said that the pair were in Florida.
As Merchan delivered the sentence, Trump sat upright, lips pursed, and was frowning slightly. He tilted his head to the side as the judge wished him “Godspeed” in his second term in office.
Before Merchan’s sentencing, the president-elect again declared his innocence.
“I’m totally innocent. I did nothing wrong,” he told the court and the judge.
He argued that voters saw what happened in this courtroom and, like him, thought it was a disgrace and supported him overwhelmingly in the election.
“It’s been a political witch hunt,” Trump said. “It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election, and obviously, that didn’t work.”
Trump said that the case and trial have “been a very terrible experience” that also marks a “tremendous setback for New York and the New York court system,” according to courthouse reporters.
During his weeks-long trial in May 2024, Trump did not take the witness stand or make any comments during the proceedings. He would often speak to reporters before and after his court dates, criticizing the case, the district attorney, and the judge.
Merchan imposed a gag order on Trump from speaking about court staff, the district attorney’s staff, members of their families, members of Merchan’s family, and witnesses in the case. The judge issued several gag order-related fines to Trump, and at one point, threatened to jail him for comments he had made during the proceedings.
On several occasions, Trump’s attorneys took legal action to dissolve the gag order but were unsuccessful. The president-elect had argued that certain witnesses, including former lawyer Michael Cohen and Stephanie Clifford, better known as adult film performer Stormy Daniels, made false statements about him and he could not respond to their allegations amid an election.
Trump said that it was his accountants who wrote down legal expenses that ultimately became the basis of the case against him.
“Legal fees were put down as legal expenses by accountants. They weren’t put down by me. They didn’t call them construction, concrete work,” Trump said during sentencing. “They called a legal expense a legal expense and for this, I got indicted. It’s incredible actually.”
Trump Faces No Punishment
Merchan said that a judge must consider the facts of the case as well as aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
“Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances,” he said, referring to Trump having won the Nov. 5, 2024, election.
He said that despite the extraordinary circumstances, the trial itself carried the hallmarks of every other proceeding in this courthouse.
“It is the legal protections afforded to the office of the president of the United States that are extraordinary, not the occupant,” he said.
However, he said that the “extraordinary legal protections afforded the office of the chief executive is a factor that overrides all others“ and that ”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,” Merchan said. “Ordinary citizens do not receive those legal protections. It is the office of the president that bestows those to the office holder. It is the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that you should once again receive the benefits of those protections.”
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass on Friday recommended that Merchan sentence Trump to unconditional discharge, citing circumstances including Trump’s impending return to the presidency on Jan. 20.
“All the circumstances of this case, its unique posture and the defendant’s status as president-elect,” are reasons why such a decision should be rendered, Steinglass said in court. “The verdict in this case was unanimous and decisive and it must be respected,” he said.
Trump Fought Sentencing
Following Trump’s election win in November 2024, Merchan delayed sentencing in the case that was set for Nov. 26, 2024, but last week issued an order to sentence Trump on Jan. 10, which the president-elect fought in court.
Trump initiated multiple last-ditch appeals to New York state courts and, later, the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court on Thursday evening, in a 5–4 decision, declined to take up his request and allowed his sentencing date to move forward.
Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Amy Coney Barrett were part of the majority who allowed his sentencing to go ahead. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch indicated they would grant his request to delay the proceedings.
“The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is denied for, inter alia, the following reasons,” the order said. “First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump’s state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal. Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of “unconditional discharge” after a brief virtual hearing.”
Trump Signals Appeal
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump said during a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago residence that he respects the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision because it allows him to appeal the matter.
“I’m the first president and probably one of the first candidates in history that’s under attack with a gag order where I’m not allowed to speak about something,” Trump said during Thursday night dinner with Republican governors. “This is a long way from finished and I respect the court’s opinion.”
The president-elect said that the justices “invited the appeal” and that it was a “very good opinion for us.”
Status of Other Cases
Aside from the business records case in New York, Trump faced charges brought in three other jurisdictions. Another state case brought in Fulton County, Georgia, has been effectively put in a state of limbo after its district attorney, Fani Willis, was removed as prosecutor by the Georgia Court of Appeals last month.
Willis, who on Thursday appealed that court’s decision to the Georgia Supreme Court, was removed amid allegations that she engaged in an improper relationship with the former special counsel whom she hired to prosecute the case.
In Washington and Florida, Trump faced federal charges that were brought by special counsel Jack Smith, who accused him of election interference and illegally retaining classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them.
In December 2024, Smith opted to drop both cases against Trump and cited Department of Justice (DOJ) policies around not prosecuting sitting presidents. Trump pleaded not guilty in both cases.
In addition to the four criminal indictments, a judge earlier this year ordered Trump to pay a $454 million penalty in a civil fraud lawsuit brought by state Attorney General Letitia James’s office, alleging that he improperly inflated his wealth for years while building his real estate empire. Trump denied the claims.
During an appeals court hearing late last year, members of the five-judge panel on the New York Appellate Division appeared concerned about possible overreach by James.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.