() President-elect Donald Trump lashed out at Democrats and the New York judge who sentenced him to an unconditional discharge, meaning he won’t go to jail, before taking office on Jan. 20.
Trump, who attended the New York hearing virtually, vowed to appeal the sentence in a lengthy missive released after the sentencing via Truth Social.
“The Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt,” Trump wrote.
“After spending tens of millions of dollars, wasting over 6 years of obsessive work that should have been spent on protecting New Yorkers from violent, rampant crime that is destroying the City and State, coordinating with the Biden/Harris Department of Injustice in lawless Weaponization, and bringing completely baseless, illegal, and fake charges against your 45th and 47th President, ME, I was given an UNCONDITIONAL DISCHARGE.”
Trump has been barred from speaking about the case due to a gag order imposed by corrupt Judge Juan Merchan. He spoke freely about his conviction for the first time after the sentencing.
HEAR IT NOW: President Trump sounds off on New York’s “political witch hunt” as he is sentenced in the courtroom.
“It was done to damage my reputation and so that I’d lose the election. And obviously, that didn’t work.” pic.twitter.com/nATJPxNbB2
— Julianna Frieman (@JuliannaFrieman) January 10, 2025
In May 2024, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records during the 2016 election after his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, designated extortion payments to porn-star Stormy Daniels as legal costs.
Trump reiterated in his statement Friday that he had done nothing wrong in the case, for which both Merchan and George Soros-funded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took extraordinary liberties with the rule of law to cobble together charges that would stick.
In order to circumvent the already expired federal statute of limitations, it was necessary to charge Trump with a state-level crime instead. But since the specific charge for falsifying business records was only a misdemeanor under New York law, prosecutors had to add a second, unspecified charge to forge ahead with “first degree” felony counts.
Merchan—whose daughter received millions of dollars for work on Democrat campaigns, including that of Trump’s eventual 2024 rival, Kamala Harris—then took the unprecedented step of telling the jury that it did not need to agree on what the second charge was in order to convict the GOP leader.
Trump said the fact that the corrupt judge was forced to issue the sentence without any consequences underscored the fact that the entire prosecution was a sham.
“That result alone proves that, as all Legal Scholars and Experts have said, THERE IS NO CASE, THERE WAS NEVER A CASE, and this whole Scam fully deserves to be DISMISSED,” the president-elect wrote. “The real Jury, the American People, have spoken, by Re-Electing me with an overwhelming MANDATE in one of the most consequential Elections in History.”
Merchan handed down the sentence on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene on Trump’s behalf.
In a 5-4 decision that saw Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett—a Trump appointee—joining the court’s three radical leftists, the majority said Trump’s problems with sentencing were “relatively insubstantial,” clearing the way for Merchan to fulfill his petty political vendetta.
“After careful analysis and obedience of government mandates, pursuant of law, the court feels the only sentence is an unconditional discharge, which is a lawful and permissible sentence for falsifying business records,” Merchan said during the sentencing. “I impose that sentence for all 34 counts, and sir, I wish you godspeed as you pursue your second term in office.”
Despite Barrett’s betrayal, Trump thanked the Supreme Court in a Truth Social post late Thursday and said he was focused on his second term.
“The pathetic, dying remnants of the Witch Hunts against me will not distract us as we unite and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he wrote.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
