President-elect Donald Trump is now a criminal with 34 charges of felony on his back. His most famous ongoing case ended on Jan. 10, 2025 and ended with Trump’s first criminal sentence. The conviction was part of an ongoing case regarding financial falsification. After his original trial and charges on May 30, 2024, his sentencing had been put to the side until recently.
According to USA Today, before Trump’s 2016 election, he fabricated business related records to cover up hush money paid to a pornstar, Stormy Daniels. With the original actions occurring in New York, the results of his sentencing only holds weight in that state.
Now, due to Trump’s actions, his conditions have been delivered. He can no longer own a gun in New York, and has to turn in a DNA sample to be kept in New York’s crime data bank. USA Today states that this is an “unconditional discharge,” due to Trump’s preparation to enter the White House again. Therefore, he does not have to do jail time, community service, or any other traditional criminal punishments. He can also still vote, go about his normal life void of reprimand, and leave the country, apart from countries that reserve the right to refuse felons, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Israel, as stated in APNews.
After this sentencing, Trump has decided to challenge it, however has not officially filed the appeal yet. From the date of sentencing, he has 30 days to file an appeal, which would be to attempt to remove himself as an official criminal in New York. However, according to USA Today, these appeals can take months, and sometimes years to be processed. A more substantial route would be for Trump to apply his returning presidential immunity, however, this was already rejected by the New York judge, Juan Merchan, when the Supreme Court tried to use immunity to nullify the case. Merchan had taken the Manhattan prosecutor’s side for this matter, due to the case being “decidedly personal acts,” and therefore not connected to his official presidential position. So far, it is looking unlikely that the president-elect will fully escape these convictions.
Despite this lenient criminal sentencing, Republicans have been resisting and coming to Trump’s defense. They call the sentencing a “joke,” and even Trump himself called it a “waste of time.” USA Today contains statements from the House Speaker Mike Johnson (originally posted on X) about how this case “should never have been brought up in the first place” and that it was a “bogus misdemeanor charge [turned] into a felony.” The uproar is not unexpected, considering Trump’s base is known to come to his aid in situations where his superiority is questioned.
On the other hand, Democrats have come to say his punishment was too relaxed for the crime. The party states that the severity of these crimes does not match up with the punishment. Questions about the level of objectiveness in the judicial system and fairness of this trial have been raised in response. In USA Today, Texan Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett references the two-tiered justice system of the U.S., and that Trump “lives on the tier where he gets to walk into the White House without spending a single day in jail or being put on probation after being convicted of 34 felonies.” Crockett also compares this situation to a client she defended, who was held on felony probation for simply stealing candy at his school’s concession stand.
The relatively small punishment Trump received can have frightening implications for the judicial system and the likelihood of a similar situation occurring again. As he makes his entry back into the White House, it remains to be seen how these convictions will affect him as a second time president.
