Trump skips jail, goes directly to White House as convicted felon
Donald Trump is officially an adjudicated convicted felon, after a judge in New York on Friday sentenced him Friday morning for the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records Trump was found guilty of in May. While Trump has already been convicted, his sentencing formalizes his criminal conviction.
Trump, however, will face no jail time or any fines for his crimes of trying to cover up hush money payments he made to a Playboy model and a porn actress during the 2016 campaign, with Judge Juan Merchan sentencing him to “unconditional discharge.”
Merchan said it was the “only lawful sentence” he could impose after Trump won the election in November.
Trump spoke at his sentencing hearing, which he attended virtually, in which he whined about the case and took no responsibility for his actions.
“This has been a very terrible experience,” Trump said.
The fact that Trump is escaping pretty much unscathed from the legal jeopardy he found himself in is a miscarriage of justice. He was able to escape accountability both because of an unprecedented decision by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court, which dragged its feet before ultimately ruling in July that Trump was immune from anything deemed an “official act” in office.
In fact, the Supreme Court almost allowed Trump to avoid Friday’s sentencing altogether, with four of the court’s nine justices ruling Thursday night that the sentencing should have been postponed.
What’s more, District Judge Aileen Cannon, whom Trump also appointed, ran interference for Trump in the classified documents case Trump faced, in which he was charged with multiple counts of improperly retaining classified documents and then trying to obstruct justice to thwart federal investigators who sought to get those documents back.
Cannon dragged her feet in moving the case along before ultimately tossing out the case altogether on the ridiculous notion that special counsel Jack Smith was “illegally appointed by the Justice Department.”
Ultimately, all of the foot dragging meant that the cases Trump faced were not able to be tried before the November election.
And after Trump won, the Department of Justice decided to stop prosecuting the cases because of past precedent that said sitting presidents cannot be indicted or prosecuted.
Still, Friday’s sentencing in New York seals Trump’s fate of holding the embarrassing distinction of being the first president to be sentenced as a felon.
At least we have that.
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