Extract from ABC News
Donald Trump appearing via videolink at his sentencing, at the conclusion of his hush money case. (Reuters: Brendan McDermid)
In short:
Donald Trump has been sentenced for covering up a payment to a porn star, but avoided a legal penalty.
Judge Juan Merchan said he imposed the "unconditional discharge" because the constitution protects presidents from prosecution.
What's next?
Now that he has been sentenced, Trump is likely to appeal the guilty verdict, handed down by a jury in May last year.
Donald Trump will neither be jailed nor fined over a hush-money payment made to a porn star, after a New York court instead handed the president-elect an "unconditional discharge".
The sentence means Trump will have a guilty judgement placed on his record, but face no further legal penalty over a scheme to hide the payment to Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Trump appeared at the sentencing hearing via video-link, describing the court ordeal as a "terrible experience" and saying he had been treated unfairly.
He said the case had also been a "tremendous setback" for New York and its justice system.
He has repeatedly claimed the case — and multiple other indictments brought against him — represented efforts to "weaponise" the justice system.
Prosecutors alleged Donald Trump paid adult-film star Stormy Daniels to cover up a sexual encounter. (Reuters: Lucas Jackson )
'Political witch hunt'
Trump, 78, will be the first US president to take office with a criminal conviction. His inauguration is on January 20.
He has vowed to appeal the guilty verdict, a process that would likely take years and would play out during his four-year presidential term.
"It's been a political witch hunt," Trump said before sentencing.
"It was done to damage my reputation so I would lose the election and obviously that didn't work."
The president-elect insists the case against him is a "political witch hunt". (Reuters: Jane Rosenberg)
The prosecution said it supported the no-penalty sentence given to Trump.
But prosecutor Joshua Steinglass was also critical of Trump's comments on the legal system, saying he had "purposefully bred disdain for our judicial institutions".
"The once and future president of the United States has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy," Mr Steinglass said.
Judge Juan Merchan said he was imposing the sentence because the US Constitution shields presidents from prosecution.
But he said the protections afforded to the office "do not reduce the seriousness of a crime or justify its commission in any way."
"Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase jury verdicts," Judge Merchan said.
Trump cases ended or in limbo
Earlier this month, Trump used social media to label Judge Merchan a "radical partisan".
He did not testify during the six-week trial, in which he was accused of making the payment to Daniels so she would keep quiet about a sexual encounter they had in 2006. Trump denies the encounter took place.
The $US130,000 payment was made before the 2016 presidential election.
Prosecutors argued it was an attempt to corrupt the election contest, in which the property mogul-turned-politician would go on to defeat Hillary Clinton. A jury unanimously found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The hush money case was the only one of several criminal cases to reach trial, in part due to a legal onslaught from Trump's legal team.
After Trump's 2024 election victory, federal prosecutors backed off their two cases due to Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
The remaining state case, brought in Georgia over efforts to reverse the 2020 election results in that state, is in limbo after a court in December disqualified the lead prosecutor on the case.
ABC/Reuters
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