He will forever be the president sworn in as a convicted criminal.
The New York sentencing has no practical impact on Donald Trump. There is no fine or imprisonment.
What it does do is complete the process that formally classifies him as a felon.
It is the distinction he fought and failed to avoid, a stigma that stains the 47th presidency.
Trump sentencing as it happened:
US president-elect spared jail or fine
Donald Trump had sought help where he’d found it before – at the last minute, he asked the US Supreme Court to halt the case.
His interactions with its nine Justices have paid dividends before. It killed his 6 January prosecution when it ruled that presidents should enjoy immunity from prosecution for official acts.
If this was a measure of Trump’s influence over the highest court in the land, it didn’t stretch as far as he wanted – this time.
The court proceedings in Manhattan’s Bowery were a throwback to the days when the president-elect was mired in legal troubles, when Donald Trump was an everyday story of courtroom scandal.
If circumstances have changed, Trump’s rhetoric has not.
He dialled into the court sentencing on a video call, a president-in-waiting, to rail against it.
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A courtroom monitor showed him sitting next to his lawyer, Todd Blanche.
Trump said: “This has been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so I would lose the election.”
We’d heard it before and we’ll hear it again.
The president-elect appeared for his sentencing in the ‘hush money’ cases remotely. Pic: AP
His lawyers are still appealing against the conviction, which was handed down for the falsification of business records in making ‘hush-money’ payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in an effort to conceal an alleged sexual encounter.
Trump argues that the case covered the official acts of a president, so he should enjoy immunity from prosecution.
It will be a matter for appeal court judges in due course, another Trump stress test for the US legal system.
Too late for his inauguration – and that’s stressing him.
