Trump’s hush money sentence ensures a convicted felon is going to the White House

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Trump’s hush money sentence ensures a convicted felon is going to the White House
Author: Alex Woodward
Published: Jan, 10 2025 16:46

Anyone not named Donald Trump would have likely gone to jail, but he can’t throw out a unanimous decision from a jury of his New York neighbors, Alex Woodward writes from Manhattan criminal court. President-elect Donald Trump is not going to jail, at least not today.

 [Donald Trump and his attorney Todd Blanche appeared virtually for his sentencing hearing in Manhattan criminal court on January 10, while his attorney Emil Bove said alone in the courtroom.]
Image Credit: The Independent [Donald Trump and his attorney Todd Blanche appeared virtually for his sentencing hearing in Manhattan criminal court on January 10, while his attorney Emil Bove said alone in the courtroom.]

He isn’t being forced to pay any fines. He won’t have to check in with a court-ordered probation officer like most criminal defendants with felony convictions. But a sentence handed down by a judge in a criminal courtroom in Manhattan on January 10 preserves one of the most important parts of the first-ever criminal trial of a former and future president: the verdict itself.

Trump has desperately fought off his four criminal cases to prevent the historic embarrassment of entering the White House a second time as the first-ever criminally convicted president. His two federal cases were effectively closed with his election victory. Another case lost the prosecutor who brought the charges. But one made it to trial.

More than seven months after a jury of his 12 Manhattan neighbors unanimously found Trump guilty on all 34 counts against him, the president-elect has escaped any criminal consequences on convictions that would most certainly land anyone not named Trump in jail.

But the verdict remains, and unless an appeals court overturns the case altogether imminently, Trump will enter the White House on January 20 as a convicted felon. He can’t pardon himself on his convictions, and he was denied the indignity of appearing in handcuffs or in a prison jumpsuit he would certainly use in fundraising and propaganda.

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