President-elect Donald Trump has been sentenced in his Manhattan hush money case and he was furious about it, but one legal expert said that it was actually a benefit to him.
CNN legal expert Ellie Honig spoke on the network after the Supreme Court refused to stop the sentencing.
“I think it was perfectly sound,” he said. “Basically, the justices in the majority said two things. First of all, they said ‘What‘s the harm? You‘re going to get sentenced to zero. You can do it by Zoom. You can roll out of bed and do it. And, second of all, you do maybe have substantial issues.’ I think he has substantial issues on appeal, but you can handle them through the full appeal process that will follow your sentencing.”
“Trump actually gets a benefit by being sentenced tomorrow, which is once that sentencing is over as of tomorrow morning, then he can take his full appeals,” he said. “He can go up to the New York Courts of Appeals. He can go maybe to the U.S. Supreme Court and say, ‘The charge against me was unconstitutional,’ which I think it may be. He can say that the jury was not properly instructed, but if he had gotten his way, if he was not sentenced tomorrow, he would not have been able to appeal.”
Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump to an “unconditional discharge” on Friday. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office did not oppose the decision, likely because it still brands Trump a felon officially.
Under New York state law, it’s a sentence imposed “without imprisonment, fine, or probation supervision.”
According to the law, such a sentence can be appropriate when the judge “is of the opinion that no proper purpose would be served by imposing any condition upon the defendant’s release.”
