President-elect Trump was sentenced in the trial involving his payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels meaning that he was convicted of felonies but will not serve jail time or pay any fines.
The case ends there for prosecutors and the judge unless President Trump appeals, and we should hope that he does so that none of us are ever convicted without knowing the crime, a clear Sixth Amendment violation.
The president-elect was prosecuted for concealing a crime but was never notified what that exact crime was during his prosecution. His lawyers asked the prosecutors for a Bill of Particulars and the judge denied that request. It wasn’t until the day before the trial that the prosecution landed on a crime and that was problematic, according to constitutional scholar Professor Jed Rubenfeld because the jury did not even really have to agree on that second crime.
The case was full of irregularities such as a judge who had a personal conflict and a clear case of selective prosecution given that Hillary Clinton made a similar bookkeeping entry for the Steele Dossier but was never charged.
This is not a partisan take. It is a constitutional take. And yet the jury convicted and the judge sentenced.
President Trump’s legal team relied on Presidential immunity to stop this sentencing, and the Supreme Court denied to stop it late last week and not the 6th Amendment violation. Many were surprised that Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the liberal justices to deny his request to halt sentencing.
So will President Trump leave it there? If he doesn’t appeal, there are certain civil liberties he would be denied such as owning a gun or traveling to some countries.
