Trump’s sentencing ends with no punishment, as judge wishes him ‘godspeed’ in his second term in office

President-elect Donald Trump appears remotely for a sentencing hearing in his New York criminal case.

After months of delay, Donald Trump’s criminal case is finally closed.

For a breezily-paced half hour, the president-elect listened and watched via video from Mar-a-Lago as a Manhattan prosecutor decried his “dangerous rhetoric” and his defense lawyer promised to appeal the case.

Trump — slumped over a table and visible in the courtroom on overhead screens — then delivered a brief, 7-minute statement of protest against the “witch hunt” against him. The judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, handed down a sentence of no punishment as expected.

It came with a brief statement of chastisement. Merchan, reading from paperwork before him at the bench, said no ordinary citizen would have received the legal breaks enjoyed by Trump.

“At this time, I impose that sentence to cover all 34 counts,” Merchan then said, referring to Trump’s felony conviction and his sentence of no jail, no probation, no fines, and no community service.

“Sir,” the judge then said in conclusion, “I wish you godspeed as you assume your second term of office.”

At the start of the Friday sentencing hearing, Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass condemned the former and future president, saying he “engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine” the legitimacy of the trial that Trump faced seven months ago.

“The defendant has encouraged disdain to undermine the rule of law, and he has done this for his own ends,” Steinglass told the court.

Steinglass continued, “This defendant has caused enduring damage to the public perception of the criminal justice system and has put officers of the court in harm’s way.”

The assistant district attorney, speaking as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sat behind him, said the court had found Trump in contempt for 10 different violations for extra-judicial speech.

Friday’s sentencing brings a delayed capstone to the criminal case just 10 days before Trump is scheduled to be sworn in again as the president of the United States.

Trump appeared by video from his Florida estate, sitting alongside his defense lawyer Todd Blanche with a pair of gold-fringed American flags draped behind them. Emil Bove, another of his attorneys, was the only person sitting at the defense table in Merchan’s lower Manhattan courtroom.

“It was a political witch hunt,” Trump said when given the opportunity to speak. “It was done to damage my reputation ahead of the election, and that didn’t work.”

In May, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of all 34 felony counts prosecutors brought against him, finding he falsified business records in order to disguise hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who testified she had a brief affair with him ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Before Trump was sentenced, the case was thrown into turmoil after the US Supreme Court ruled in July that the president is entitled to sweeping criminal immunity protections.

Although Trump was no longer president, and much of the conduct in his case took place before his first term, the Supreme Court ruled the immunity protections were so vast that it even precluded evidence from being admitted in a criminal proceeding.

Trump’s attorneys asked Merchan to delay the sentencing indefinitely and throw out the case. The judge ultimately set Friday’s date, writing that only a sentencing hearing before Trump’s second term would respect the jury verdict — as well as allow Trump to appeal his case like any other ordinary defendant.

Just 14 hours beforehand, a narrow US Supreme Court majority swatted down Trump’s last legal efforts to halt the sentencing.