New York (AFP) – It was, by many measures, a trial like New York had definitely seen before — a panel of citizen jurors finding a real estate mogul guilty of business fraud. But it was anything but ordinary because when it comes to Donald Trump, the average routinely turns surreal. His criminal sentencing after a conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records caps a roller coaster of delays and legal proceedings that began when the Republican was a former president and ended on Friday, just 10 days before he retakes the White House.
What once had the potential to be one of the more dramatic sentencings in modern United States history ended with a tone of banality — via video chat, with Trump calling in from Florida, showing his age by leaning into the camera. Ultimately, Trump’s re-election to lead the nation’s highest office spared him potential prison time, leaving him a convicted felon in name only. He was ever-defiant as dozens of journalists, court staffers, the prosecution, and the judge gathered on the drafty 15th floor of Manhattan’s criminal court to hear the 78-year-old, wearing a striped red tie, call the proceedings an “embarrassment to New York,” his hometown.
“I’m totally innocent” and “I got indicted over calling a legal expense a legal expense,” he said. “I was treated very, very unfairly. Thank you very much,” Trump said to close his characteristic rant, which he delivered alongside his lawyer Todd Blanche and flanked by two American flags.
The legal expense in question was hush money to a porn star to prevent word of their alleged sexual encounter from getting out in the days before the 2016 presidential election, which Trump ultimately won. Before he took the mic, he fidgeted as prosecutors detailed his crimes as well as his contemptuous conduct before, during, and after the trial, saying “the defendant has purposefully bred disdain” for the judicial system while threatening those who are a part of it.
“Such threats are designed to have a chilling effect, to intimidate folks who have the responsibility to enforce our laws, in the hopes that they will ignore the defendant’s transgressions because they fear he is simply too powerful,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass. And yet, Steinglass agreed with Judge Juan Merchan’s ultimate decision to deliver a sentence of unconditional discharge, a measure that upholds the guilty verdict but does not sanction the convicted defendant.
“The American public has the right to a presidency unencumbered by pending court proceedings,” Steinglass said. “Imposing this sentence ensures this finality.” For his part, Merchan took pains to emphasize Donald Trump, average citizen, would have received harsher punishment than President-elect Donald Trump will. “Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances,” Merchan said.
“Yet the trial was a bit of a paradox,” he continued. “Once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique or extraordinary than the other 32 criminal trials that took place in this courthouse at the same time.” The high-profile trial was “conducted pursuant to the rules of procedure and guided by the law,” Merchan said, an indirect takedown of Trump’s insistence that the proceedings amounted to a political “witch-hunt.”
And after handing down the unconditional discharge — “the only lawful sentence” that the court deemed would ensure the functionality of the presidency — Merchan bid Trump farewell. “Sir, I wish you godspeed as you assume your second term in office,” he said. And with that, the historic first criminal trial of a US president was over, and the screen went blank. Donald Trump, convicted felon, had logged off.
© 2024 AFP
