Live Updates: Trump’s Sentencing in N.Y. Criminal Case Is Underway
Though Donald J. Trump is expected to avoid jail time, the sentencing in Manhattan on 34 counts will formalize his status as a felon and make him the first to carry that distinction into the White House. He is attending the proceeding virtually.
After months of delay, President-elect Donald J. Trump on Friday is the first American president to be criminally sentenced.
He is expected to avoid jail or any other substantive punishment, but the proceeding will still carry significant symbolic importance. It will formalize his status as a felon, making him the first to carry that dubious designation into the presidency.
The proceeding began soon after 9:30 a.m., and it might be brief. Mr. Trump appeared virtually, his scowl projected onto a screen in a chilly yet bright Lower Manhattan courtroom filled with reporters, sketch artists and courtroom personnel. He was at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, seated along with one of his lawyers in front of a pair of large American flags.
The hearing began in earnest with a lead prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, recapping the “overwhelming evidence” against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Steinglass also said that the prosecution had recommended that Mr. Trump receive a so-called unconditional discharge of his sentence, a rare and lenient alternative to prison time or probation.
But Mr. Steinglass still blasted Mr. Trump, saying that “far from expressing any kind of remorse for his criminal conduct, the defendant has purposefully bred disdain for our institutions and the rule of law.”
Mr. Trump, he added, “has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way.”
Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, said he “very much” disagreed with Mr. Steinglass’s characterizations. He blasted the very legitimacy of the case, repeating Mr. Trump’s frequent claims that it amounted to election interference.
He said it was a “sad day” for Mr. Trump’s family — and the country.
Once Mr. Trump is sentenced, he will be able to begin a formal appeal of his conviction. He cannot, however, pardon himself. The presidential pardon authority does not extend to state charges.
The sentencing, which comes 10 days before Mr. Trump’s second inauguration, stems from his conviction on charges of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his first presidential campaign.
Once the jury convicted Mr. Trump on all 34 felony counts in May, the former and future president fought tooth and nail to avoid the embarrassing spectacle of a sentencing. This month, his lawyers filed a series of requests in New York State Court to halt the proceeding, all of which failed, leading him to seek an emergency reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the high court on Thursday denied Mr. Trump’s request for a stay, a surprising show of independence from a court that has appeared sympathetic to Mr. Trump in other recent cases.
The court’s rejection was a victory for the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, for whom the prosecution was a career-defining endeavor. It also validated a recent decision by the trial judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan, to push ahead with the sentencing days before the inauguration.
Justice Merchan signaled he would impose the unconditional discharge.
Here’s what to know about Mr. Trump’s sentencing:
The case: After a seven-week trial last spring, a jury of 12 New Yorkers convicted Mr. Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The case arose from a 2016 hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who was selling her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. Had she gone public, Ms. Daniels might have triggered a scandal in the final days of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. Mr. Trump, the jury concluded, reimbursed his fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for the hush money and then directed that records be falsified to keep the payment under wraps.
Felon status: The jury’s verdict made Mr. Trump the first former president to be branded a felon. But in the eyes of the law, his status as a felon will not be cemented until Justice Merchan imposes the sentence.
The punishment: Mr. Trump had faced up to four years in prison, but his election victory made incarceration a practical and constitutional impossibility. And while a conditional discharge would have required Mr. Trump to meet certain requirements, like maintaining employment or paying restitution, the unconditional discharge he is likely to receive comes with no strings attached.
The judge, Juan Merchan, has begun to speak. He will explain the reasoning behind his sentence before he imposes it. He begins calmly, reading from a sheet in front of him.
“I was treated very, very unfairly, and I thank you very much,” Trump concludes.
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Trump again falsely insists that the Justice Department is “very involved,” and singles out Matthew Colangelo. He says they “got them to move on me.” The lawyer sitting next to him, Todd Blanche, is his choice to be the No. 2 official at the Justice Department.
Trump can talk for as long as he wants unless the judge decides otherwise, and he is taking advantage of the unencumbered time, speaking to a courtroom in which he sat quietly for weeks, listening to witnesses discuss him without being able to respond.
Trump sees himself as his own best publicist, economic adviser and, ultimately, lawyer. And he was never likely to miss an opportunity to define this case in his own words.
Trump continues to assert the importance of the election over the verdict, saying that voters got to see this “firsthand.” The trial was not broadcast, though, and many voters were not able to follow it as closely as he is implying. Audio from today’s hearing will be the first nonwritten recording of this case proceeding to which the general public will have access.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTTrump again complains about the gag order that he’s been under. “I assume I’m still under a gag order,” Trump says. Then he adds, “But the fact is, I’m totally innocent.”
Trump calls Michael Cohen, his own former lawyer and fixer who was a key witness during the trial, a “totally discredited person.” He says Cohen has “no standing, he’s been disbarred on other matters.” He says that Cohen was allowed to talk as if he was George Washington. “But he’s not George Washington.”
Trump says that people in the country got to see the case “first-hand” and then he won. He points to the fact that he won all seven key swing states.
Trump, as his lawyer Todd Blanche did, refers to “legal experts” who he says thought the case shouldn’t have been brought. He’s going through a litany of people, from cable pundits to conservative legal experts.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTTrump seems to be reading from something in front of him. He is saying a version of what he has said before, that the payment to Stormy Daniels was a legal expense and that his accountants had logged it that way. He alludes to someone working with his “opponent,” indicating President Biden.
This may be a reference to Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor who worked at the Justice Department before the district attorney recruited him back to New York. Trump and his allies have attacked Colangelo repeatedly.
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, blinks in the second row of the gallery, as Trump falsely asserts that it was not he who decided to bring the case.
Trump begins speaking. “This has been a very terrible experience. I think it’s been a tremendous setback” for New York and its court system, he says.
Blanche concludes by agreeing that if there is to be a sentence, the only appropriate sentence is an unconditional discharge.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTBlanche is asserting the supremacy of the November election over the jury verdict in this courtroom, essentially saying that the political victory was the last word on the case.
Blanche, as he has since he was retained, blasts the very legitimacy of the case. He says that it was “started for what amounted to a third time” after Trump announced his intention to run for re-election, repeating Trump’s frequent accusations of election interference.
Blanche points out that the government brought this case after examining it and declining to bring it at other points, a fact that Trump’s team has repeatedly pointed to.
Blanche is facing a confirmation hearing of his own before the Senate in the next few weeks, likely at the start of February.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTTodd Blanche, Trump's lawyer, is now speaking, saying he “very much” disagrees with Steinglass’s words.
Trump is alternating staring at the camera and glancing down as Steinglass continues. The prosecutor says that the American public has the right to a presidency unencumbered by the continuing demands of any alternative sentence. But, Steinglass says, it’s important that Trump’s status as a felon be formalized, to pay due respect to the jury’s verdict.
Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, noted that the probation report they received stated that the defendant sees himself as above the law and does not accept responsibility for his actions.
“This defendant has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way,” Joshua Steinglass says.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTDonald J. Trump will be represented at his sentencing by some of the same lawyers who defended him during his seven-week trial last spring, at which Mr. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn star.
The president-elect’s lawyers have been seeking to overturn the verdict by a Manhattan jury and to stave off his sentencing on the grounds of presidential immunity. They have also sought to remove the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, from the case, arguing that he is biased. Their efforts so far have been unsuccessful.
Mr. Trump has rewarded some of his lawyers by announcing that he would appoint them to roles in his administration. Here’s a closer look at them:
Todd Blanche
Mr. Blanche began representing Mr. Trump in 2023 after leaving a prestigious position as a partner at Wall Street’s oldest law firm. In addition to the hush-money case, he represented him in two federal cases that have since been dropped: the election interference case in Washington and the classified documents case in Florida.
He previously defended Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Mr. Trump’s adviser Boris Epshteyn.
Mr. Blanche has been tapped by Mr. Trump to become the deputy attorney general in his administration, a role that requires Senate confirmation. He was formerly a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, where he supervised violent crime cases. He delivered both the opening statement and closing argument for the defense at Mr. Trump’s trial and conducted the cross-examination of Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen.
Emil Bove
Mr. Bove, also a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan, is one of Mr. Blanche’s legal partners. Mr. Bove conducted several important cross-examinations during the trial, including the questioning of David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer.
Late last year, Mr. Trump announced that he would appoint Mr. Bove to another top position in his Justice Department: principal associate deputy attorney general.
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