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- To take us through this ruling and what it means for the president elect. Well, if after this opinion, president elect Trump is still a convicted felon, but there is some good news here, as the judge is signaling that he does not intend to impose penalties against Trump after being convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records last year, the judge did have the option to impose a jail sentence.
- But in a sort of unusual move, he's previewing what he will do next Friday, saying that is not something he is going to do. He says, quote, it seems improper at this juncture. It seems proper at this juncture to make known the court's inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration. So he's imposing a sentence of what he describes as unconditional discharge, because that, he says, is the most viable solution.
- Now, unconditional discharge just means there'll be a sentencing, but there'll be no penalties, no community service, no fine, no jail. So what happens next Friday will largely be performative. Now it's also notable the judge is making a real concession about the demands that Trump faces as president elect.
- This is something that his lawyers have continuously argued. Judge Juan Rashawn says, quote, to assuage the defendant's concerns regarding the mental and physical demands during the transition period, this court will permit the defendant to exercise his right to appear virtually for this proceeding. If he so chooses.
- And this is notable because over the course of this case, just one, Rashawn has not been terribly sympathetic to many of the presidential related arguments that Trump's lawyers have made. But here they're saying, yeah, we know you have a lot of time on your hands, a lot of things to do, not much time. So you should not be burdened with having to travel up to New York for the sentencing.
- Now, the Trump team was trying to get the entire case dismissed, have the verdict tossed out. They were not successful here, but they can continue their appeal. But in a statement today, Trump's communications director Steven Chung, making it clear they're not overall very happy with how this turned out, saying, quote, there should be no sentencing.
- And President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they're all dead, likely referring to the four criminal cases Trump has faced. Of course, the two federal cases filed by Jack Smith are dead. They have been dismissed. The Georgia case is on life support. And here in New York, Trump was convicted.
- But the judge here signaling he will not face any penalties even though he was convicted of 34 felonies. As you point out. Paula Reid, thank you very, very much. Our legal and political experts are joining us right now. Jennifer Rogers, you're one of our legal analyst, former federal prosecutor. Trump is going to be sentenced, but the judge says he won't face any penalties.
- Explain from your perspective what's going on here. Well, the judge has two options a conditional discharge, which means it comes with conditions. The defendant must serve a jail sentence or pay a fine or have some sort of supervision or an unconditional discharge, meaning there are no conditions at all.
- The case is just discharged. That's what Judge Marshall is signaling that he will do. And it makes sense, because once this election happened and Trump was reelected, the die was cast. He was not going to prison. He was not going to be supervised. The only option really was a fine. And the maximum fine here is just not high enough to make any difference to Trump.
- So you might as well not issue any sentence at all. That makes the conviction final. Trump can pursue his appeal, but it makes it much less likely that the sentence will be stopped. So I think it actually was wise. I think we want closure here. We want these felonies to be finalized, and that's what the people should want, what the jury verdict indicates.
- So I think it was actually wise of Judge Marshall to proceed this way. It's interesting, Maggie Haberman, that the judge is now allowing Trump to appear at this sentencing hearing virtually. How has his reelection changed his view towards these cases? What do you know about the reaction inside the Trump world right now? So the Trump team, Wolf, is debating what to do.
- They have two options. They can they can ask for a stay to set this aside so that there is no sentencing on Friday. And then it can next Friday and then it continues. Or they can go ahead with this sentencing virtually or not. And then, you know, the conviction is complete and then they can begin their appeals process.
- But that would mean that Trump is going into office having been sentenced as a convicted felon. Neither of these are options that Donald Trump loves. you know, he's looking he's facing a different reality now. He's not facing a reelection campaign. he has been elected to a second term. Constitutionally, that's all he can serve.
- So the political benefit to him in, you know, showing up in court and and fighting for himself is maybe less than it would be otherwise. That having been said, he's very angry about these cases and that hasn't changed. He's very angry about this case in particular. And he may decide that he wants some kind of a display of fighting it.
- I don't think we're going to know that for another two days or so. Elise Adams Adamson, another former federal prosecutors with us. This is how the Trump team, in a statement responded to this. And I'm quoting now today's order by the deeply conflicted Acting justice mission in the Manhattan Da witchhunt is a direct violation of the Supreme Court's immunity decision.
- The Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed. How do you respond to that? Well, Wolf, I'd respond that, Judge Marshawn made it very clear that this decision of his disorder, does not contradict the immunity ruling because none of the conduct he found were official acts and because all of fell outside of that immunity ruling, then the jury's verdict should be preserved.
- And dismissal is not required at this time. I, you know, what else was the Trump team going to say, quite frankly? I mean, it's the same script, it's the same narrative. And so we shouldn't be surprised that that's the reaction. But let's be clear. Judge Marshawn made a very detailed analysis on why this was constitutional and why the jury verdict should stand, and I'm sure that Trump's team will appeal it.
- But the reasoning was legally sound. Jennifer, so is this case effectively right now over or potentially could it be revived once Trump has left office? You plan to go to President Carter? Well, if the sentencing happens next Friday and he is sentenced but not sentenced to any penalties, then it is over except for the appeals.
- Of course, Trump has the right to appeal. He has lots of complaints about rulings during the trial and so on. He has his presidential immunity argument, so the appeals will still happen. But if the sentencing does go, then we at least won't have the whole case held in abeyance, which was one of the options, until we got the judge's ruling today.
- So it will be over, but not yet completely finalized until the appeals have run their course, which in New York can take up to a couple of years. As you know, Maggie Trump has suggested many times during the campaign trail, for example, that he wants to enact some measure of revenge for the cases against him.
- Is this likely to further that desire on his part? I certainly don't think it's going to diminish it. I mean, you know, he looked at Trump was coming in prior to this, the big thing that his legal team accomplished was getting the sentencing delayed. in September, they found out it was going to be delayed past Election day.
- That that was a huge, moment of relief for Trump, his political team, his legal team. This moment was always going to come at some point. But for Trump, who entered office in 2017 with this, these questions about Russia and his campaign hanging over him, this is a source of tension that he doesn't, I think, want to deal with.
- And it is also a reminder that he is still facing certain legal challenges. He's obviously not facing the ones that he was facing when he had been indicted four times and convicted one, you know, the circumstances are very different, especially on the federal level. But he is facing these civil, cases. He still has these challenges in the New York attorney general case, the aging Carroll cases, and so forth.
- And so, you know, it's not it's not all gone. Elise, how do you think Trump's appeal in this case is likely to play out? And how does Trump's being the sitting president of the United States impact all of this? Well, that's a very good question. I mean, we're in unprecedented times right now. I think the immunity ruling shocked most of us in the legal community.
- So, you know, at this point, it is hard for me to forecast how they will ultimately this will ultimately come out. Now if he goes to sentencing on the 10th, as was already stated, he'll be able to appeal on the merits of the case, and then they will go back into these rulings and to see whether or not an appellate court agrees with Judge Rashawn that no official acts were at play.
- And because this is so new, it's just hard to tell now, with respect to, president elect Trump being the sitting president, again, because of his likely sentence, which is nothing, no penalty. I think very much will help. And except his legal team will fight very hard to have this conviction reversed. And they'll also continue to fight very hard to control this narrative.
- So I think we can expect more of the same narrative spin and a lot of legal wrangling. We shall see. All right, guys, thank you very, very much.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu3TnmGN3Fg