A judge has ordered that Donald Trump will be sentenced on 10 January in his hush-money case in New York – less than two weeks before he is set to be sworn in as president.
New York Justice Juan Merchan signalled he would not sentence Trump to jail time, probation or a fine, but instead give him an “unconditional discharge”, and wrote in his order that the president-elect could appear in person or virtually for the hearing.
Trump had attempted to use his presidential election victory to have the case against him dismissed.
The president-elect has posted on social media dismissing the judge’s order as an “illegitimate political attack” and calling the case “nothing but a rigged charade”.
Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 (£105,000) payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
The charges related to attempts to cover up reimbursements to his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who in the final days of the 2016 election campaign paid off the adult-film star to remain silent about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.
The president-elect has denied all wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty, arguing the case was an attempt to harm his 2024 presidential campaign.
In the post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday Trump said the judge’s sentencing order “goes against our Constitution and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it”.
Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung earlier called the order part of a “witch hunt”.
“President Trump must be allowed to continue the presidential transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the witch hunts,” Cheung said.
“There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead.”
In his latest motion against the case, Trump had argued the case would hang over him during his presidency and impede his ability to govern.
Justice Merchan said he had been advised of several measures he could employ that could assuage Trump’s concerns about being distracted by a criminal case while serving as president that fell short of the “extreme remedy” of overturning the jury’s verdict.
His options included delaying the sentencing until Trump, 78, leaves the White House in 2029, or guaranteeing a sentence that would not involve prison time.
Trump had initially, and unsuccessfully, argued the case against him ran afoul of a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
In July, the country’s top court ruled that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for “official actions” they take while in office.
However, last month Justice Merchan ruled Trump’s hush money conviction was valid.
Trump is currently set to be the first convicted felon to serve in the White House.
He may attempt to appeal against the conviction after the sentencing.
While falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison in the US, there is no minimum sentence and incarceration is not required.
Even before his election victory, legal experts thought it was unlikely Trump would face jail time given his age and his legal record.
Trump has also been charged in three other state and federal criminal cases: one involving classified documents and two relating to his alleged efforts to overturn his loss in the election of 2020.
The president-elect was initially scheduled to be sentenced on 26 November, but Justice Merchan pushed the date back after Trump won the presidential election.
A guide to Donald Trump’s four criminal cases
Republican Donald Trump is facing off against Democratic presidential candidate and current Vice-President Kamala Harris in November’s election. How might his criminal prosecutions affect his campaign?
The 78-year-old is the first former president in US history to be criminally convicted, having been found guilty of falsifying business records.
A few weeks later, the US Supreme Court ruled he had partial immunity in perhaps the most serious case he faces – that he tried to overturn the 2020 election result.
And it was not long before the former president scored a further legal win, when a Florida judge dismissed a case related to his handling of classified documents.
So what might happen next in his four criminal cases and what is at stake as he seeks to return to the White House?
What’s it about?
Whether Trump illegally conspired to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.
Federal prosecutors allege he pressured officials to reverse the results, knowingly spread lies about election fraud and sought to exploit the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021 to delay the certification of Mr Biden’s victory and stay in power.
He’s been charged with four criminal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the US and conspiracy against the rights of citizens.
Some had speculated he would be charged with insurrection, or aiding insurrection, but that is not one of the charges.
US prosecutors in August issued revised charges in an attempt to navigate a ruling from the Supreme Court that had thrown the case into doubt.
That Supreme Court ruling had said that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts they undertake.
The revised indictment leaves in place the four criminal counts, but these now relate to the former president’s status as a political candidate rather than a sitting president.
It argues Trump acted as a private citizen and not as a president when he undertook the alleged scheme to sway the election.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and claimed the Biden administration is behind the prosecution. He previously pled not guilty to all charges.
When’s the trial?
It doesn’t look like it will happen any time soon.
Trump launched an appeal in this case, claiming he had broad immunity from prosecution as president, due to a 1982 precedent that recognised immunity in civil cases.
Lower courts rejected Trump’s claim but the Supreme Court ruled that Trump had limited immunity for official acts he carried out as president.
But the revised indictment shows that Department of Justice (DoJ) Special Counsel Jack Smith interprets the Supreme Court ruling to mean his case can still move forward.
Mr Smith’s office said the superseding indictment had been presented to a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case.
But whether it would satisfy the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity framework remains unclear.
There is a strong chance some of the charges may not survive.
If Trump wins re-election, he could in theory pardon himself or order all these charges to be dismissed.
Could Trump go to prison?
Penalties for the charges include:
- Conspiracy to defraud the US is punishable by a fine or up to five years in prison
- Obstructing an official proceeding is punishable by a fine or up to 20 years in prison
- Conspiracy against rights is punishable by a fine or not more than 10 years in prison, or both
But there are logistical, security and political questions around whether Trump would actually serve time in jail even if convicted.
A conviction at trial would take the US into uncharted territory.
What’s it about?
A payment made to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election.
Ms Daniels was paid $130,000 (£103,000) to keep quiet about her claim that she had sex with Trump, which he denies.
Providing so-called hush-money is not illegal.
Instead, this case was more technical and centred on how Trump’s former lawyer, who paid Ms Daniels, had his reimbursement recorded as legal fees in Trump’s accounts.
What happened at trial?
The prosecution’s key witness was ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, who testified that his former boss knew about the elaborate scheme to disguise the payment.
In days of heated cross-examination, Trump’s lawyers sought to undermine Cohen and paint him as an unreliable witness and convicted liar.
The jurors deliberated over two days before finding the former president guilty of all 34 counts of fraud under campaign finance laws.
Trump has said the case is politically motivated.
His lawyers are requesting the conviction be overturned, citing the Supreme Court immunity ruling, according to a letter seen by US media including the BBC’s partner network, CBS News.
Could Trump go to prison?
Each of the charges carries a maximum of four years in prison, although a judge could sentence Trump to probation later this month.
Legal experts told the BBC they think it is unlikely Trump will be jailed and that a fine is the more likely outcome.
What’s it about?
Trump and some 18 other defendants are accused of criminally conspiring to overturn his very narrow defeat in the state of Georgia in the 2020 election.
The racketeering investigation, led by Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, was sparked in part by a leaked phone call in which the former president asked the state’s top election official to “find 11,780 votes”..
Trump was hit with 13 criminal counts, subsequently reduced to 10. They include one alleged violation of Georgia’s Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (Rico).
The former president has pleaded not guilty.
When’s the trial?
A date has not been set. The timeline has been complicated by an effort by Trump and his allies to disqualify Ms Willis because of her romantic relationship with a man she hired to work on the case.
An appeals court has tentatively set a date of 4 October to hear oral arguments in the bid to have Ms Willis removed.
Could Trump go to prison?
The racketeering charge carries a maximum 20-year jail sentence.
Georgia prosecutors would need to prove that there was a pattern of corruption from Trump and his co-defendants aimed at overturning the election result in order to bring a conviction.
As for making false statements, that carries a penalty of between one to five years in prison or a fine.
What’s it about?
Whether Trump mishandled classified documents by taking them from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence after he left office.
The case against Trump is also about whether he obstructed the FBI’s efforts to retrieve the files, as well as the criminal investigation into his handling of them.
The majority of the counts are for the wilful retention of national defence information, which falls under the Espionage Act.
There are then eight individual counts, which include conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record and making false statements. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
When’s the trial?
The case was dismissed by a Florida judge on 15 July, marking a significant legal victory for Trump just days after he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, made the dismissal on the basis that the Justice Department’s appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith violated the US Constitution.
But Mr Smith appealedthe decision, which came after Judge Cannon cancelled the 20 May trial date without giving a new one.
Mr Smith argued the judge’s view “deviated” from legal precedent.
Trump and his lawyers have long tried to put the case off until after the November presidential election.
The case now faces an uncertain future after the Supreme Court’s immunity decision.
Could Trump go to prison?
If the case is restarted, these charges could, in theory, lead to substantial prison time if Trump is convicted.
Looking at the letter of the law, the counts under the Espionage Act each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years. Other counts, related to conspiracy and withholding or concealing documents, each carry maximum sentences of 20 years.
But the logistics of jailing a former president mean a conventional prison sentence is seen as unlikely by many experts.
Trump gets Johnson across the finish line but dramatic speaker vote signals challenges ahead
With two Republican lawmakers standing between Mike Johnson and the speaker’s gavel, President-elect Donald Trump picked up the phone.
From the golf course Friday afternoon, he spoke to Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas and convinced them to ultimately fall in line behind Johnson.
Without a vote to spare, the Louisiana Republican won his bid to retain the gavel and lead a narrowly divided chamber into the new year. While the official record will state he secured the necessary 218 votes on the first try, the drama unfolded with far less certainty and demanded Trump’s intervention until the very end. The first vote of the 119th Congress underscored the president-elect’s hold over the Republican Party – and the challenge he faces keeping it together over the next two years ahead of the 2026 midterms, which could threaten the GOP’s Washington trifecta.
Trump, according to two sources familiar with the pitch, argued that Republicans needed to work as a team and warned that voters would have very little tolerance for the dysfunction that would ensue if Republicans could not unite behind a speaker.
“The message was that he wants what everyone else wants: his agenda to pass,” Self said of his conversation with Trump before he switched his vote in favor of Johnson. “And that was my message to him, Mr. President, we need a strong negotiating team. The message was clear.”
Rep. Andy Biggs, one of a half dozen conservative hardliners who initially withheld support from Johnson, told CNN after the vote that he still had reservations with House leadership, but Trump’s confidence in Johnson had swayed the GOP conference.
“I have concerns, but President Trump said he wanted to work with Johnson, and basically, basically, we took that into account,” the Arizona Republican said leaving the House floor.
Asked if he believes Johnson would’ve survived without Trump’s endorsement, Biggs said, “No. I think it was important.”
Johnson himself stressed that Trump’s endorsement – delivered on Monday – was “a big factor” in the contest, saying that “his voice and his influence are of singular influence.” Trump had initially planned to endorse him on New Year’s Day, however, the congressman suggested he should do it sooner, he told a local Baton Rouge radio station earlier this week. By Friday morning, Trump and his team were fully hands-on in helping Johnson land the votes. Besides the president-elect speaking directly to defectors, one of Trump’s closest Hill allies, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, was seen on the phone with Trump’s incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in the middle of the vote.
Trump had made clear all week that a drawn-out fight could undermine confidence in the Republican takeover of Washington and perhaps end with an inexperienced leader in charge of steering his agenda through the House. Trump signaled his willingness to personally lobby Johnson’s skeptics, a step he was unwilling to take during previous House GOP leadership skirmishes.
A key early test for Trump
Still, the episode served as another reminder that Trump faces an uphill battle governing over the next two years, even with Republicans controlling the White House and Congress.
With narrow majorities in the House and Senate, Trump needs nearly unanimous support from his party – or bipartisan help – or he risks failing to fulfill the wholesale change he promised voters he was uniquely positioned to deliver. The margin in the House will only tighten if the Senate confirms Reps. Mike Waltz of Florida and Elise Stefanik of New York to serve in the administration as national security adviser and United Nations ambassador, respectively.
The difficulty ahead is informed in part by how House Republicans have struggled since winning back the majority in the 2022.
“Governing is messy sometimes,” Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma told CNN. “And I think we’ve proven that not only today, but over the last two years. But we’ll get there.”
Already, Trump has confronted the limitations of his reach within his own party. Before the holiday break, he unsuccessfully pressured House Republicans to raise the country’s borrowing limit during a funding vote that took the government perilously close to a shutdown.
His allies also failed to influence the vote to name the next Senate majority leader, a job won by South Dakota Sen. John Thune, an erstwhile critic of the incoming president. Nor could Trump sway Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to name his daughter-in-law Lara Trump to the Senate seat that currently belongs to Marco Rubio, the president-elect’s pick for secretary of state. And Trump abandoned a bid to make former Rep. Matt Gaetz his attorney general in the face of strong opposition from Senate Republicans.
But getting Johnson over the finish line marked a key early test for Trump’s ability to navigate a closely divided chamber where individual lawmakers know they will wield incredible power.
“It’s going to be a dicey run for this House Republican majority, just to be fair about it,” said former Rep. Patrick McHenry, who for 22 days oversaw the last GOP speakership fight as speaker pro tempore. “But it’s enabled and (Johnson’s) speakership is enabled by having President Donald Trump in office. And without Donald Trump, this vote might have been a different outcome.”
Leading up to the vote, Trump expressed confidence Johnson would win, telling CNN’s Kristen Holmes that he didn’t have any other names in mind for the job should the Louisiana Republican falter.
Johnson and his allies knew there was no real path to another Republican being elected. The only question was how many ballots it would take to get there — and how much Trump himself would need to lean on the skeptics.
Even as the vote began, senior members of GOP leadership didn’t know exactly how the vote would go. Out of three lawmakers who opposed Johnson on the floor, only Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky had informed leadership he would oppose the speaker. Self, one of the initial defectors, came entirely out of left field, as one person described it.
And while Trump and Johnson had clashed over the spending bill in December, the president-elect and his team quickly realized they needed to help squeeze the rest of the GOP conference to avoid drama going into inauguration.
“He had a lot of influence,” said House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma. “We had 20 odd people last time that weren’t there on the first ballot. We had three and they got there.”
Johnson resisted giveaways
Besides Trump’s influence, perhaps most notable in the whole ordeal was Johnson’s insistence that he would land the votes without the usual commitments made by speakers of both parties — the promise of plum committee slots or certain bills coming to the floor.
Johnson said one of the ways he won over GOP holdouts was by reupping his commitment to empower individual lawmakers in the 119th Congress, but offered no giveaways to curry votes.
“I was already committed to that, so I just reaffirmed,” he said when asked about some of the hardliners’ push for more member empowerment.
This offers Johnson far more room to operate, politically, over the next two years in one of the narrowest House majorities in history. And the approach stands in stark contrast to his predecessor Kevin McCarthy, whose tradeoffs with his detractors ultimately helped derail his speakership.
Johnson’s allies cheered his willingness to stand up to the GOP hardliners, without alienating them.
“When you surrender to your hostage takers, you lose control of your, in this case, political soul,” long-time Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma told CNN.
Key members of the House Freedom Caucus spent days laying out demands to Johnson, such as spending cuts or reforms to the appropriations process. And even after Johnson clinched the gavel, a group of House Republicans released a letter outlining a list of demands they want him to take up.
“Today we voted for Mike Johnson for Speaker of the House because of our steadfast support of President Trump and to ensure the timely certification of his electors,” 11 GOP lawmakers wrote. “We did this despite our sincere reservations regarding the Speaker’s track record over the last 15 months.”
But the speaker ultimately made no policy guarantee or committee adjustments that would upset the rest of the conference.
Johnson, for example, refused to consider Rep. Chip Roy of Texas as chair of the powerful House Rules panel, which would have allowed him to amend language and determine how it comes to the floor.
Instead, Johnson released a statement saying he would create a working group on implementing spending reforms — working with Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency — that will issue a public report related to government agency audits. He also said that he would “request” committees look deeply into government agencies or individuals who have “weaponized government against the American people.”
And many conservatives were clear that they would not rubber stamp Trump’s agenda through the House and expected the chance to weigh in.
“We still got work to do. This is the beginning. This isn’t the end,” said Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, who had initially received a vote in the speaker’s race before it changed to Johnson.
