The verdict was passed before Trump returned to power, allowing him to return to the White House without the burden of the threat of jail or fines. Hush Money Case.
The verdict was passed before Trump returned to power, allowing him to return to the White House without the burden of the threat of jail or fines.
The newly-elected President of the United States Donald Trump has been sentenced to “unconditional release” after being found guilty of 34 counts of business fraud relating to the payment of that money to porn star Stormy Daniels in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The verdict confirms Trump’s conviction before he even returns to power, allowing him to return to the White House with the threat of jail or fines.
Trump’s unconditional release sentence covers a specific case in which the former and future president was charged with 34 crimes, tried for nearly two months, and found guilty by a jury on each charge.
What is an unconditional release?
Unconditional release means Trump will not be sentenced to jail, fined, or face probation, but his conviction will still stand and he will take office as a convicted felon.
Just 10 days after Trump took office, Judge Merchan indicated he was planning no sentence, known as unconditional release, and prosecutors were not opposing it. That means there will be no jail sentence, no probation and no fine, but nothing is final until the hearing is completed on Friday.
Unusual case
According to Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan, he would have to regard any aggravating factors as any other defendant before pronouncing a sentence on Trump. Still, the legal privileges that Donald Trump enjoys as president ” However are the factors which prevail over all other factors.”
“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those legal protections, one right they do not provide is that they do not override a jury verdict,” Marchen said. The judge further said it was an unusual case.
Never before has the Court experienced such rare and extraordinary circumstances. “This is an extraordinary case,” he said.
He said on Friday that he supports the death penalty, but he condemned Trump’s attacks on the justice system throughout the case and after.
The decision came a day after the Supreme Court rejected the president-elect’s request to halt the trial. Trump said he thought it was a “fair decision” and raised the possibility of further appeals like this one.
Trump addressed the court virtually from his home in Florida and stressed that his criminal trial and conviction were a “very horrific experience” and that he had committed no crime. He pleaded guilty to the retrial, the only one of his four criminal counts to go to trial and likely the only one that will go to trial.
“This is a political conspiracy. It was done to smear my reputation so I would lose the election, and clearly it did not work,” Trump said.
What is the hush money case?
Trump was convicted in New York in May of falsifying business records to conceal hush payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election so she would not reveal details of a sexual encounter they had in 2006.
Trump’s lawyers have sought to dismiss the case on several grounds, including a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year that says former U.S. presidents are immune from prosecution for many official actions taken while in office.
Trump also faced two federal cases filed by special counsel Jack Smith, but both were dismissed under the Justice Department’s longstanding policy of not prosecuting a serving president.
In those cases, Trump is accused of conspiring to manipulate the results of the 2020 election and removing a large amount of top-secret documents after leaving the White House.
Trump also faces smuggling charges in Georgia for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, but that case is likely to be put on hold while he’s in the White House.
