Trump appears virtually in New York court to be sentenced in hush money case
Trump, a Republican, will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidency.
US President-elect Donald Trump is appearing virtually in a New York courtroom to be sentenced for his hush money conviction, 10 days before he is inaugurated.
Trump, seated in a dark suit, appeared on a video feed from his Florida club, seated with one of his lawyers, as his sentencing hearing began on Friday after the nation’s highest court refused to intervene.
Like so much else in the criminal case and the current American political landscape, the scenario set to unfold in an austere Manhattan courtroom was unimaginable only a few years ago.
A state judge is to say what consequences, if any, the country’s former and soon-to-be leader will face for felonies that a jury found he committed.
With Trump 10 days from inauguration, Judge Juan M Merchan has indicated he plans a no-penalty sentence called an unconditional discharge, and prosecutors are not opposing it.
That would mean no jail time, no probation and no fines would be imposed, but nothing is final until Friday’s proceeding is done.
Regardless of the outcome, Trump, a Republican, will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidency.
Trump will have the opportunity to speak.
He has pilloried the case, the only one of his four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will.
As he appeared from his Florida home, the former president was seated with his lawyer Todd Blanche, whom he has tapped to serve as the second-highest ranking Justice Department official in his incoming administration.
The judge has indicated that he plans the unconditional discharge – a rarity in felony convictions – partly to avoid complicated constitutional issues that would arise if he imposed a penalty that overlapped with Trump’s presidency.
The hush money case accused Trump of fudging his business records to veil a 130,000 dollar (£105,000) payoff to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
She was paid, late in Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she maintains the two had a decade earlier.
He says nothing sexual happened between them, and he contends that his political adversaries spun up a bogus prosecution to try to damage him.
“I never falsified business records. It is a fake, made up charge,” the Republican president-elect wrote on his Truth Social platform last week.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges, is a Democrat.
Before the hearing, a handful of Trump supporters and critics gathered outside.
One group held a banner that read: “Trump is guilty.”
The other held one that said: “Stop partisan conspiracy” and “Stop political witch hunt.”
