Judge to sentence US President-elect Donald Trump before inauguration in hush money case

The New York judge presiding over US President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money case has set sentencing for 10 days before the Republican leader’s January 20 inauguration and said he was not inclined to impose jail time.

Judge Juan Merchan said Trump, the first former President convicted of a crime, can appear either in person or virtually at his January 10 sentencing.

In an 18-page decision released today, Merchan rejected various motions from Trump’s lawyers seeking to have his conviction thrown out.

The judge said that instead of incarceration he was leaning towards an unconditional discharge – a far more lenient sentence that would nevertheless have Trump entering the White House as a convicted felon.

“It seems proper at this juncture to make known the court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration,” the judge said, noting prosecutors also did not believe a jail term was a “practicable recommendation”.

Trump was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter.

Trump’s attorneys had sought to have the case dismissed on various grounds, including the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year that former US presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts committed while in office.

Merchan rejected that argument but noted Trump will be immune from prosecution once he is sworn in as President.

“Finding no legal impediment to sentencing and recognising that presidential immunity will likely attach once defendant takes his oath of office, it is incumbent upon this court to set this matter down for imposition of sentence prior to January 20, 2025,” Merchan said.

Trump also faced two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith but both were dropped under a long-standing Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting President.

Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and removing large quantities of top-secret documents after leaving the White House, but the cases never came to trial.

Trump also faces racketeering charges in Georgia over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in the southern state, but that case will likely be frozen while he is in the White House.