Trump, who will appeal the sentence, will take office on January 20 as the first US president under judicial conviction
MADRID, 10 (EUROPA PRESS)
The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, was sentenced this Friday to “unconditional freedom” by a New York court in a decision that does not imply a fine, prison, or any type of punishment beyond the initial sentence for the bribery case against former porn actress Stephanie Clifford, known as ‘Stormy Daniels’.
Trump, who has once again denounced the process as a “charade” and declared his intention to appeal this sentence, was convicted in April on a total of 34 charges, when he was not even confirmed as an official candidate for the White House. The judge held him responsible for falsifying documents to hide a payment of $130,000 to ‘Stormy Daniels’, whom he paid not to talk about an alleged extramarital relationship.
The president-elect, who has spent months denouncing the case as political persecution, has not been present in the New York court and has listened to the sentence by videoconference from his residence in Mar-a-Lago (Florida).
In his final statement before hearing the sentence, Trump declared that this entire case “has represented a step backward for New York and its judicial system” and insisted that what happened “has been a political witch hunt,” designed to harm his “reputation.”
DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE POSITION AND THE OCCUPANT
The investigating judge Juan Merchan wanted to emphasize, before reading the sentence, that Trump has benefited from the legal protections that accompany the figure of the president of the United States, the crucial factor that has conditioned his deliberations, before separating the person of the position.
“What is extraordinary is the legal protections that accompany the office of the president of the United States, not the person who holds it,” said the judge, who has warned Trump that his position will not “erase the verdict of the jury” that convicted him. to the elected president at the time.
“Ordinary citizens do not receive this kind of protection. It is the office that grants it to its occupant and the citizens of this nation have recently decided that you, once again, should benefit from them,” the judge ruled in reference to previous cases in which Trump has been exonerated due to his presidential immunity, such as his alleged involvement in the attack by his supporters on the Capitol in January 2021.
Be that as it may, the sentence does not at all affect the fact that Donald Trump was convicted of the ‘Stormy Daniels’ case and the American tycoon will become, within ten days, the first president of the United States with a judicial verdict. of guilt behind his back.
TRUMP ANNOUNCES THAT HE WILL APPEAL THE SENTENCE
A few minutes after hearing the sentence, Trump unleashed a new declaration on his social network Truth Social against the entire procedure and announced his intention to appeal the judge’s decision, the culmination of a process that in his opinion has constituted a new defeat of the Democratic Party opposition, a “scam” and a “despicable charade.”
“Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, un-American witch hunt,” Trump said. “After wasting more than six years of obsessive work that should have been spent protecting New Yorkers from the wave of violent crime that is destroying the city and state (…) and after filing false and illegal charges against “Your president, that is, me, has sentenced me to unconditional release,” he added.
For Trump, this result demonstrates that “there is no case and that there never was one” and that “this scam deserves to be completely annulled” before ensuring that “the true jury is the American people who have spoken” at the polls by re-electing to the magnate in the November presidential elections.
“What happened today was a despicable charade and, now that it is over, we will appeal against this falsehood, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in this once great system,” he concluded.