President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced overnight in his hush money case, but the judge declined to impose any punishment, an outcome that cements his conviction while freeing him to return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.
The punishment-free judgement marks a quiet end to an extraordinary case that for the first time put a former president and major presidential candidate in a courtroom as a criminal defendant. The case was the only one of four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan could have sentenced the 78-year-old Republican to up to four years in prison….