Furthermore, if you are elected President, any sentence you serve will be executed at the end of your term. As a former President, your safety is of utmost importance. I will instruct state officials to work with the Secret Service to find a suitable location to house you and your security personnel. I am confident that a suitable solution will be found. If not, the relevant parties will report back to me and we will proceed from there.
Let me start with the arguments in favor of a lighter prison sentence. You are a 77-year-old man with no criminal record. The 34 felonies for which you were convicted are non-violent crimes. Under New York state law, they are Class E felonies, the lightest category. Generally, most people like you who are convicted of felonies that include falsifying business records are not sentenced to prison.
These are all factors that argue against putting you in jail. One factor that I don’t think is relevant is that you are a former president and currently a presidential candidate. As I said, your work as president has conditions It’s not about the basic question of whether you should be incarcerated, but about the issue of your detention.
The fact that you have served as president and the possibility of being elected to a second term go hand in hand. You are entitled to the respect and protection that goes with it that is accorded to anyone who has held the highest office in the land.
But the fact that you hold that office means that you are, or should be, an example to the rest of the public. There is an argument to be made that people who hold such visible and responsible positions should be held more strictly accountable if they abuse their public trust and break the law.
In my view, just as no one is above the law, no one should be treated better or worse because of a position they once held. Furthermore, I do not take into consideration any political ramifications of the decisions I make. My job is to do justice to the best of my ability, not to anticipate public reaction or political repercussions. There will be those who vehemently disagree with and protest the decisions I make today. That is their right, protected by the Constitution.
So, as I have said, I am sentencing you to 60 days in jail. I base this decision on several factors. First, this sentence is consistent with, and in fact is less than, the sentences imposed on others who engaged in the same conduct for which you were convicted.
Michael Cohen, who testified against you, pleaded guilty to crimes involving the same payments at the center of this case and was sentenced to three years in federal prison. I myself sentenced Allen Weisselberg, the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization, to five months in prison for his role in your company’s tax evasion scheme.
It is inconceivable that the head of the organization should avoid prison while his lieutenants have to serve their sentences, and given the quality of your housing, imposing some form of house arrest on you does not seem like a significant burden.
Second, the conduct for which you were convicted, although nonviolent, was a serious crime against the voters of this state and, more broadly, our political system. The jury found that you conspired to withhold material and potentially politically damaging information during the 2016 election.
This was not a victimless or harmless crime. As you well know, your actions may have affected the outcome of that campaign. Your subsequent falsification of business records, which the jury found you intended to do, was in furtherance of that conspiracy.
Third, I must consider the trial process and your egregious conduct after your conviction. As a citizen, a criminal defendant, and a presidential candidate, it is your right to maintain your innocence, criticize the prosecution, and challenge the verdict. It is also your right to appeal in any way possible.
It is not your right to disobey a court order. You have repeatedly and flagrantly violated my carefully crafted instructions regarding the scope of your grievances. You have criticized witnesses. You have disrespected jurors. You have been in contempt of court 10 times and come close to being jailed for your actions.
Immediately after your verdict was handed down, you described the trial as a “disgrace” and an “unjust.” In fundraising emails, you described yourself as a “political prisoner.” You implicitly warned that the public might “not tolerate” you if you were incarcerated. If you appeal, it is your right to protest your innocence, but your repeated and unfair denigration of the criminal justice system will naturally be weighed against you.
I am sentencing you to 60 days in jail followed by six months community service. I do not take this step lightly, but after careful consideration I have concluded that it is both just and necessary that you be held accountable for your actions.
