Merchan Sentences Trump in Hush Money Case

SCOTUS refused to step in. In other news, Smith and Garland plan to release the J6 and Classified Docs case reports.

Just after the New Year, Judge Merchan announced that he would issue a sentence in the hush money case on January 10. What followed was a whirlwind week of Trump’s lawyers trying and failing to get a stay at every level of the appeals process. Their last Hail Mary play was an appeal to SCOTUS. However, late Thursday afternoon, SCOTUS refused to intervene.

Early Friday morning, Merchan released his ruling, sentencing Trump to an Unconditional Discharge with no conditions.

This means Trump will not be imprisoned, fined, or face probation. However, his conviction still stands, and he will enter office as a convicted felon. It is a sentence without a punishment.

Now that sentencing has happened, Trump is free to appeal the case, and boy, does he have grounds. For instance, besides the Presidential Immunity grounds, one of the biggest problems with this case is that Judge Merchan allowed the jury to disagree on the underlying crime that would convert the charges from misdemeanors long past their statute of limitations into felonies. But, in Erlinger, SCOTUS ruled that unconstitutional and said that the jury must unanimously agree on the underlying crime if they are going to rule on an elevated charge.

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Meanwhile, Special Counsel Jack Smith notified the courts he was going to be turning over his case reports for both Trump cases to Merrick Garland for release to the general public. While he said Garland would be releasing them today, January 10, Judge Cannon intervened on behalf of the remaining defendants in the Classified Documents case, and said that neither Smith nor Garland could release the reports pending a ruling from the 11th circuit. Well, yesterday, the 11th circuit denied the motion to prevent the release. Because of Cannon’s ruling, the earliest Garland can release the reports will be Sunday. Garland has informed Congress that he intends to make the reports public as soon as possible. After all, he only has about 10 more days in office. This will be his parting gift to Trump and the rest of the country.

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Lorraine Yuriar is a wife, mother, and lifelong conservative, currently stuck in a very blue state.