Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 13, 2024 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sentenced Friday morning in his New York criminal hush money case, more than eight years after events that led to his prosecution, and ten days before his inauguration for a second White House term.
Trump, who will attend the hearing remotely, is expected to get no jail time, no probationary term and no fine from Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.
But Merchan’s actions will formally make Trump the first criminal convict ever to occupy the Oval Office.
The hearing comes a day after Trump and his wife Melania Trump attended the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter in Washington. The Trumps sat with every other living former president.
A jury last May found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush money payment his then-personal lawyer paid porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Daniels was paid for her silence about claims she had sex once with Trump a decade earlier, claims the president-elect has denied.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night lifted the final legal barrier to Trump’s sentencing, refusing his request to block proceedings in the case.
The decision was narrow — 5 to 4 — with Trump appointee Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining fellow conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and three liberal justices to issue the majority decision.
The ruling noted that Trump’s sentence would impose a “relatively insubstantial” burden on his presidential responsibilities and that he had the right to appeal on claims that Merchan improperly allowed certain evidence at trial.
Trump’s lawyers argue that he is immune from criminal prosecution, but courts have repeatedly rejected that claim as it relates to the hush money case because he was not yet president when the initial conduct in the case occurred.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.