President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday in his hush money case, but the judge declined to impose any punishment, an outcome that cements his conviction but frees him to return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.
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00:00Donald Trump, you are before the court for sentence, following your conviction by trial, to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
00:08This court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction without encroaching upon the highest office in the land is an unconditional discharge,
00:22which the New York State Legislature has determined is a lawful and permissible sentence for the crime of falsifying business records in the first degree.
00:32Therefore, at this time, I impose that sentence to cover all 34 counts.
00:38Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume your second term in office. Thank you.
00:43This has been a very terrible experience. I think it's been a tremendous setback for New York and the New York court system.
00:52It's been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I'd lose the election.
00:58And obviously that didn't work. And the people of our country got to see this firsthand because they watched the case in your courtroom.
01:06They got to see this firsthand and then they voted and I won and got the largest number of votes by far of any Republican candidate in history.
01:14And this has been a weaponization of government. They call it lawfare. Never happened to any extent like this, but never happened in our country before.
01:23Instead of preserving, protecting, and defending our constitutionally established system of criminal justice, the defendant, the once and future president of the United States,
01:34has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy. Far from expressing any kind of remorse for his criminal conduct,
01:45the defendant has purposefully bred disdain for our judicial institutions and the rule of law.
01:53Put simply, this defendant has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm's way.
02:07A lot of what the government just said presupposes that this case is legally appropriate and that the charges that were brought by the people were consistent with the laws of New York.
02:21Again, we very much disagree with that and as everybody has been noted because it's true, we certainly intend on appealing that.
02:29Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances. Indeed, it can be viewed fairly that this has been a truly extraordinary case.
02:43There was unprecedented media attention, public interest, and heightened security involving various agencies.
02:51And yet, the trial was a bit of a paradox because once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique, or extraordinary than the other 32 criminal trials that took place in this courthouse at the same exact time.
03:07However, the considerable, indeed, extraordinary legal protections afforded by the Office of the Chief Executive is a factor that overrides all others.
03:19To be clear, the protections afforded the Office of the President are not a mitigating factor.
03:25They do not reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way.
03:32The protections are, however, a legal mandate which pursuant to the rule of law, this court must respect and follow.
03:41However, despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict.
03:48It is clear from legal precedent, which until July 1st was scarce, that Donald Trump, the ordinary citizen, Donald Trump, the criminal defendant, would not be entitled to such considerable protections.