Trump’s Sentencing Set for January — Days Before He Returns to the White House

In a surprising twist, President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in the hush money case has been scheduled for Jan. 10, just over a week before his inauguration. Despite the timing, the judge indicated that Trump will avoid jail time.

If the sentencing proceeds as planned, Trump will make history as the first U.S. president to take office after being convicted of felony crimes.

Judge Juan M. Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s trial, announced in a written decision that the former president will likely receive an unconditional discharge — a legal resolution that closes the case without imposing jail time, fines, or probation. Trump will also have the option to appear remotely for the sentencing.

Merchan emphasized the need to strike a balance between various factors, including Trump’s capacity to govern without interference, the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, public expectations of accountability, and respect for the jury’s verdict.

“This court is simply not persuaded that the first factor outweighs the others at this stage of the proceeding,” Merchan wrote in an 18-page decision.

Trump’s Push To Dismiss Case Rejected

In his ruling, Merchan denied Trump’s request to throw out the verdict based on presidential immunity and his impending return to office. He clarified that there were no legal barriers to sentencing Trump before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

The judge added that delivering a final sentence before Trump takes office was necessary to uphold the judicial process. “Only by bringing finality to this matter will the interests of justice be served,” Merchan wrote.

Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, doubled down on the former president’s longstanding claims that the case is illegitimate.

“There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead,” Cheung said in a statement.

The Charges and Conviction

Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records. The charges stemmed from an alleged scheme to conceal a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. The payment was intended to keep Daniels from publicizing claims about an alleged affair with Trump.

Although Trump denies the allegations and maintains he did nothing wrong, the jury found that he misrepresented how his company reimbursed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who made the payment to Daniels.

Cohen testified that he fronted the money and was later reimbursed through a series of payments logged as legal expenses by Trump’s company. Most of those checks were signed by Trump while he was in the White House. Prosecutors argued that the false accounting was part of a broader effort to keep damaging information from reaching voters during the campaign.

Trump, however, has maintained that Cohen was paid for legitimate legal services and that any efforts to suppress Daniels’ claims were made to protect his family from embarrassment — not to influence the election.

Legal and Political Maneuvering

Following Trump’s election victory on Nov. 5, Merchan temporarily paused sentencing to allow both the defense and prosecution to weigh in on how the case should proceed. Trump’s legal team pushed to have the conviction dismissed entirely, arguing that continuing the case would unconstitutionally disrupt the president-elect’s ability to govern.

Prosecutors, while acknowledging the need to accommodate Trump’s upcoming presidency, argued that the conviction should not be thrown out. They proposed alternative resolutions, including pausing the case during Trump’s term or issuing a no-jail sentence.

One suggestion involved formally closing the case while noting Trump’s conviction and ongoing appeal — a strategy occasionally used in cases where defendants die before their appeals are resolved.

Merchan ultimately ruled that Trump’s status as president-elect does not grant him the same immunity as a sitting president and does not justify overturning the verdict. He described the defense’s request to dismiss the case as “drastic” and “rare.”

Doing so, he wrote, “would undermine the Rule of Law in immeasurable ways.” He further noted that such a move would not align with the Supreme Court’s stance on presidential immunity.

A Historic Presidency

When Trump takes office on Jan. 20, he will become the first former president convicted of a crime and the first convicted individual to assume the presidency.

At age 78, Trump faces potential penalties ranging from fines to probation, with a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

The hush money case is centered on how Trump recorded payments to Cohen, who made the payment to Daniels on Trump’s behalf. Prosecutors allege that labeling those reimbursements as legal expenses was a deliberate attempt to disguise their true purpose.

Trump, a Republican, has repeatedly slammed the case as politically motivated, calling it a “rigged, disgraceful” outcome of a “witch hunt” led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat.

Broader Legal Challenges

The hush money case is just one of several legal issues Trump has faced. It is the only one of his four criminal indictments to go to trial so far.

Special counsel Jack Smith dropped two federal cases against Trump after his election victory. Those cases involved Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Meanwhile, a separate state-level case in Georgia concerning election interference remains largely on hold.

Trump’s legal team argued that Smith’s decision to dismiss the federal cases should apply to all criminal cases against the president-elect. However, Merchan rejected that argument, explaining that the New York case was at a different stage of the legal process.

In the Meantime

Trump continues to pursue an appeal and has sought to move the case to federal court. A federal judge has repeatedly denied that request, though Trump’s legal team has appealed those decisions.

Despite these ongoing legal battles, Trump remains focused on his return to the White House. His supporters see him as a leader unfairly targeted by political adversaries, while critics argue that his conviction raises significant concerns about the rule of law and accountability at the highest levels of government.