NEW YORK: President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday to no punishment in his historic hush money case, a judgment that lets him return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.
With Trump appearing by video from his Florida estate, the sentence quietly capped an extraordinary trial rife with moments unthinkable in the US only a few years ago.
It was the first criminal prosecution and first conviction of a former US president and major presidential candidate. The New York case became the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will. And the sentencing came 10 days before his inauguration for his second term.
In roughly six minutes of remarks to the court, a calm but insistent Trump called the case “a weaponization of government” and “an embarrassment to New York.” He maintained that he did not commit any crime.
“It’s been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election, and, obviously, that didn’t work,” the Republican president-elect said by video, with US flags in the background. Beside him at his Mar-a-Lago property was defense lawyer Todd Blanche, whom Trump has tapped to serve as the second-highest ranking Justice Department official in his incoming administration.
After the roughly half-hour proceeding, Trump said in a post on his social media network that the hearing had been a “despicable charade.” He reiterated that he would appeal his conviction.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan could have sentenced the 78-year-old to up to four years in prison. Instead, Merchan chose a sentence that sidestepped thorny constitutional issues by effectively ending the case but assured that Trump will become the first president to take office with a felony conviction on his record.
Trump’s no-penalty sentence, called an unconditional discharge, is rare for felony convictions. The judge said that he had to respect Trump’s upcoming legal protections as president, while also giving due consideration to the jury’s decision.
“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” said Merchan, who had indicated ahead of time that he planned the no-penalty sentence.
As Merchan pronounced the sentence, Trump sat upright, lips pursed, frowning slightly. He tilted his head to the side as the judge wished him “godspeed in your second term in office.”
Before the hearing, a handful of Trump supporters and critics gathered outside. One group held a banner that read, “Trump is guilty.” The other held one that said, “Stop partisan conspiracy” and “Stop political witch hunt.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges, is a Democrat.
The norm-smashing case saw the former and incoming president charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, put on trial for almost two months and convicted by a jury on every count. Yet the legal detour — and sordid details aired in court of a plot to bury affair allegations — didn’t hurt him with voters, who elected him in November to a second term.
“The American voters got a chance to see and decide for themselves whether this was the kind of case that should’ve been brought. And they decided,” Blanche said Friday.
Prosecutors said that they supported a no-penalty sentence, but they chided Trump’s attacks on the legal system throughout the case.
“The once and future president of the United States has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said.
Afterward, Trump was expected to return to the business of planning for his new administration. He was set later Friday to host conservative House Republicans as they gathered to discuss GOP priorities.
The specific charges in the hush money case were about checks and ledgers. But the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Trump’s political rise.
Trump was charged with fudging his business’ records to veil a $130,000 payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She was paid, late in Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she maintains the two had a decade earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them and that he did nothing wrong.
Prosecutors said Daniels was paid off — through Trump’s personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen — as part of a wider effort to keep voters from hearing about Trump’s alleged extramarital escapades.
Trump denies the alleged encounters occurred. His lawyers said he wanted to squelch the stories to protect his family, not his campaign. And while prosecutors said Cohen’s reimbursements for paying Daniels were deceptively logged as legal expenses, Trump says that’s simply what they were.
Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to forestall a trial, and later to get the conviction overturned, the case dismissed or at least the sentencing postponed.
Trump attorneys have leaned heavily into assertions of presidential immunity from prosecution, and they got a boost in July from a Supreme Court decision that affords former commanders-in-chief considerable immunity.
Trump was a private citizen and presidential candidate when Daniels was paid in 2016. He was president when the reimbursements to Cohen were made and recorded the following year.
Merchan, a Democrat, repeatedly postponed the sentencing, initially set for July. But last week, he set Friday’s date, citing a need for “finality.”
Trump’s lawyers then launched a flurry of last-minute efforts to block the sentencing. Their last hope vanished Thursday night with a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that declined to delay the sentencing.
Meanwhile, the other criminal cases that once loomed over Trump have ended or stalled ahead of trial.
After Trump’s election, special counsel Jack Smith closed out the federal prosecutions over Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A state-level Georgia election interference case is locked in uncertainty after prosecutorFaniWillis was removed from it.

CHICAGO: Discussions to ensure a “responsible transition” in Syria to prevent a rise in terrorism, provide basic services to citizens and ensure good relations with regional nations are progressing, the US acting undersecretary for political affairs told a press briefing attended by Arab News on Friday.

Concluding two days of talks with Turkish officials in Ankara, John Bass said the Syria Working Group also addressed defining Syria’s borders and “strengthening internal security” to prevent a resurgence of Daesh and other “foreign terrorist organizations” in the country.

Bass was careful not to predict how US policy might change under Donald Trump, nor would he address questions regarding Israel’s military attacks against Syria. 

“We’ve also discussed in depth a range of steps that the United States and other governments have taken to enable the interim authorities in Damascus to address the immediate needs of the Syrian people, including via support from other governments for things like salaries, payments for the civilian administration at the national level, for donations of power or energy, and for some of the other measures that are required to stabilize the Syrian government, to stabilize the economy, and to give the Syrian people hope that this transition will yield a better future for all of the citizens of the country,” Bass said.

“What we’re working through … is how we can affect a responsible transition … so that it contributes to strengthening national forces over time and building, rebuilding a military and a police service that responsibly fulfills its duties and obligations to the Syrian people, but to do that in a way that doesn’t create immediate risk,” he added.

“It’s a complicated process to help a national government, particularly one that’s an interim government that needs to do a lot of internal work with other parts of Syrian society to determine what that government will look like in the future.”

Bass said the US is concerned that events in Syria do not “pose a threat to any of Syria’s neighbors, to countries in the wider region or to countries further afield, whether that’s in Europe, the United States or elsewhere around the world.”

He added that “the long-running civil war in Syria and the long-standing presence of Daesh” in the country have created threats to neighboring nations.

“It’s in that spirit that we’ve been engaging … in discussions about how we can help work together to ensure that as this transition continues inside Syria that it doesn’t just produce a better, safer environment inside Syria for all Syrians, it also addresses the security concerns of Turkiye, of Iraq, of Jordan, and of Syria’s other neighbors,” he said.

The US “greatly” admires “the generosity of the Turkish government and the Turkish people in hosting over 3 million (Syrian) refugees for now well over a decade,” he added. 

Bass said discussions were focused on ensuring that fighters of terrorist groups such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are forced to return to their nations of origin.

“We’re in agreement with the government of Turkiye and a number of other governments that Syria can’t be, shouldn’t be in the future a safe haven for foreign terrorist organizations or foreign terrorist fighters. And we believe that any foreign terrorist that’s present inside Syria should leave the country,” Bass said in addressing the PKK.

“Ideally, many of those people will be returning to their countries of origin, their countries of nationality, through a responsible process that involves those governments potentially to face justice for their actions.

“But they should no longer be present in Syria, contributing to instability in the country. And that includes any foreign terrorists who have taken advantage of the long-term instability in Syria to set up shop whether it’s in northeastern Syria, whether it’s in southwestern or southern or southeastern Syria.” 

Asked how Trump administration policies might differ, Bass said: “I’m a senior official of the current United States government. I can’t speak for the next US administration, nor can I offer any insights at this time into how US policy might change under the next administration.”

He expressed confidence, however, that “colleagues in the US government” will continue to support Syria’s transition.

Bass also emphasized that the small US presence in Syria has one specific purpose, “to ensure that Daesh doesn’t again become a threat to the people of Syria, the people of Turkiye, the people of Iraq or Jordan, or any other country.”