New York judge uses lawfare case to sentence Trump to … ‘discharge’
A judge in New York has used Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s lawfare case against President-elect Donald Trump to sentence the 45th, and soon-to-be 47th president, to a “discharge.”
The sentence is a penalty without jail time or probation, but a move to keep the conviction on Trump’s record, a conviction that a long list of constitutional experts expect eventually will be thrown out.
The judge claimed the unconditional discharge ruling was the only legal sentence he had available.
Trump told the judge he was completely innocent, and had done nothing wrong.
The actual appeal process has not been able to start yet because of the lack of a final sentencing from the lower court.
It is Juan Merchan, who has a record of financially supporting Democrat candidates and whose daughter was making money from Democrats while her father was ruling against Trump in his courtroom, who announced the sentence in the case labeled “hush money” by legacy media.
In it, Bragg claimed business reporting errata by Trump’s companies amounted to felonies, even though they ordinarily would have been misdemeanors for which the statute of limitations had expired.
Bragg said they were felonies because they were in pursuit of some other, unidentified, crime. In fact, jurors failed to identify that crime, and Merchan inexplicably said their verdict didn’t have to be unanimous in the case that was just one prong of Democrats’ multi-jurisdiction lawfare campaign, a failed effort to use various created civil and criminal cases to keep him from running for president again.
BREAKING: Donald Trump delivers remarks following his sentencing in New York court.
“This has been a weaponization of government… I’d just like to exclaim that I was treated very, very unfairly.”
pic.twitter.com/rkhdcn9zVw— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 10, 2025
Bragg brought to court, and Merchan allowed, salacious testimony from a former porn star and a discredited lawyer in order to convince jurors in the leftist enclave of Manhattan, which repeatedly has voted by vast majorities against Trump, to convicted Trump of 34 counts.
The issue was that Trump’s lawyer paid the porn star for silence about an alleged affair both denied happened. The payments made to the lawyer were labeled as legal expenses.
The Supreme Court just hours earlier had allowed the sentencing to move forward, on a narrow 5-4 vote. Trump had urged the justices to halt the court date, as his pending appeal will “ultimately result in the dismissal of the District Attorney’s politically motivated prosecution that was flawed from the very beginning, centered around the wrongful actions and false claims of a disgraced, disbarred serial-liar former attorney, violated President Trump’s due process rights, and had no merit.”
George Washington University law professor, and constitutional expert, Jonathan Turley, explained Merchan had orchestrated a tight timeline that gave Trump minimal options to challenge his courtroom antics.
“This is what some of us predicted when the appeals just began. Merchan really played this perfectly, and I say that not as a compliment. He knew that he was giving President-elect Trump very little runway by which to take an appeal off,” Turley told Laura Ingraham on Fox. “He also knew that appellate courts generally prefer for sentences to be finalized to review the case as a whole, and he played those two cards to guarantee that he’ll be able to sentence President Trump…”
He said the situation will cement the image of Trump for many in the country as a “victim of lawfare.”
Turley said the Supreme Court vote shows “how troubling the case is overall. That what this trial-level judge has done in Manhattan is to hold a presidential candidate first, now a president-elect, to his courtroom on a short leash. This is the same judge that gagged the leading candidate for president in a campaign where his case was one of the issues of most concern with voters. And it obviously is an equal concern among at least four justices,” Turley said.
BREAKING: Trump responds to Judge Merchan’s decision requiring him to appear for sentencing on January 10th. pic.twitter.com/k7chfRqlxP
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 4, 2025
WND has reported the case is being handled by a “deeply conflicted” Merchan.
Merchan, who analysts have suggested is thumbing his nose at the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling regarding the Trump cases, recently assumed the pulpit to lecture Trump over his “disdain for the third branch of government.”
He accused Trump of going to “great lengths to broadcast on social media and other forums his lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and the justice system as a whole.”
That “disdain” from Trump followed a years-long series of lawfare cases assembled by Democrats who appeared to be trying to jail him to keep him from running for the White House again.
For example, multiple charges were filed over the government documents Trump held after he left the presidency. However, federal prosecutors found Joe Biden liable for the same offense, but gave him a free pass for his actions. One jurisdiction even claimed an “organized crime” conspiracy involved Trump.
Experts have noted the Merchan trial itself was “replete with layers of reversible error.”
…He still has to rule on the general challenge over errors committed at trial. Some of us view the case as replete with layers of reversible error. https://t.co/o4ZJdNwfb7 However, Merchan was never viewed as likely to second guess his prior rulings…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 17, 2024
Federal authorities earlier had looked at the same evidence Bragg used, and had decided there was no basis for any charges against Trump.