Trump set for sentencing in his New York felony conviction

After months of legal twists and turns, Donald Trump’s most active criminal case is finally reaching a conclusion.

The former and future president is scheduled to appear in a Manhattan courtroom on Friday for his sentencing on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a payment to an adult film star.

Trump on Thursday exhausted his last legal maneuver to stop the sentencing, after a narrow majority of Supreme Court justices declined to intervene.

The hearing comes just 10 days before Trump is expected to be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. He had argued the sentencing would interfere with his ability to govern.

In light of that, New York state Judge Juan Merchan has indicated he does not plan on sentencing Trump to prison or even probation, and is instead likely to offer an “unconditional discharge,” meaning the president-elect must do nothing, but the conviction will remain on his record.

Prosecutors have signaled the hearing could be short — less than an hour — and that Trump is expected to attend the hearing virtually.

“There’s nothing else that the defendant has to do, and therefore it’s the least restrictive in terms of how it could impede in any way on the president-elect as he takes office,” Anna Cominsky, director of the criminal defense clinic at New York Law School, said about the expected sentence of an unconditional discharge.

“It certainly makes sense that there be some finality to this case because as a nation, we should want to move on, in particular as he assumes the role of president, and be able to look forward to the next four years without this sentence pending,” Cominsky said. “There has to be an end.”

Of course, Trump’s legal team is likely to appeal the conviction and sentence again — as they have done throughout the legal proceeding. Appeals could stretch on for years.

Since Trump’s conviction in May, Merchan has postponed the sentencing several times, including to avoid any perception of political bias ahead of Election Day, and then to allow Trump to argue he had immunity in the case, based on a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Merchan ultimately denied the immunity claims, and the dismissal, paving the way for the hearing on Friday.

Fundraising haul

In May, Trump became the first former or sitting U.S. president to be tried on criminal charges and be convicted.

The jury in Manhattan state court heard from 22 witnesses during about a month of testimony in Manhattan’s criminal court. Jurors also weighed other evidence — mostly documents like phone records, invoices and checks to Michael Cohen, Trump’s once loyal “fixer,” who paid adult-film star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about her story of an alleged affair with the former president.

After about a day-and-a-half of deliberations, the 12 jurors said they unanimously agreed that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels in order to influence the 2016 presidential election.

But the conviction appeared to have little impact on Trump’s popularity — and ultimate electoral victory during the 2024 presidential election. He has used the legal drama to mobilize donations for his campaign and mounting legal fees.

Within 24 hours of the guilty verdict, Trump’s campaign boasted of raising millions of dollars.

And 49% of the nation’s voters in November’s election ultimately chose to bring Trump back to the White House.