By Luc Cohen and Jack Queen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will not go to jail or face any other punishment for his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star, a judge ruled on Friday but said Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration would not erase the jury verdict.
Justice Juan Merchan’s sentencing of Trump, 78, to unconditional discharge places a judgment of guilt on his record and closes a case that had loomed over Trump’s bid to retake the White House.
Trump will be the first president to take office with a felony criminal conviction.Â
Merchan said he was imposing the sentence sparing Trump jail, a fine or probation because the U.S. Constitution shields presidents from criminal prosecution. But he said the protections afforded to the office “do not reduce the seriousness of a crime or justify its commission in any way.”
“The considerable, indeed extraordinary, legal protection afforded by the…
