US judge sets date for Donald Trump hush-money sentencing but rules out prison term
Hindustan TimesIn an extraordinary turn, a judge Friday set President-elect Donald Trump's sentencing in his hush money criminal case for Jan. 10 — little over a week before he's due to return to the White House — but indicated he wouldn't be jailed. Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, signaled in a written decision that he'd sentence the former and future president to what's known as an unconditional discharge, in which a conviction stands but the case is closed without jail time, a fine or probation. Rejecting Trump’s push to dismiss the verdict and throw out the case on presidential immunity grounds and because of his impending second term, Merchan wrote that only “bringing finality to this matter” would serve the interests of justice. He said he sought to balance Trump’s ability to govern, “unencumbered” by the case, against other interests: the U.S. Supreme Court's July ruling on presidential immunity and the public’s expectation “that all are equal and no one is above the law,” and the importance of respecting a jury verdict. Trump's lawyers argued that Smith’s decision to dismiss the federal indictments against Trump should propel a dismissal of the New York hush money case, as well.