After the Supreme Court yesterday refused to intervene in the Donald Trump/hush money case in New York, Judge Juan Merchan went forward with his intent to pronounce sentence on the man who will be inaugurated president in 10 days.

The result? A big, fat nothing.

President-elect Donald Trump was formally sentenced Friday in his hush money case, but the judge declined to impose any punishment. The outcome cements Trump’s conviction while freeing him to return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.

Trump’s sentence of an unconditional discharge caps a norm-smashing case that saw the former and future president charged with 34 felonies, put on trial for almost two months and convicted on every count. Yet, the legal detour — and sordid details aired in court of a plot to bury affair allegations — didn’t hurt him with voters, who elected him to a second term.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan could have sentenced the 78-year-old Republican to up to four years in prison. Instead, he chose a sentence that sidestepped thorny constitutional issues by effectively ending the case but assured that Trump will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidency.

Trump said his criminal trial and conviction has “been a very terrible experience” and insisted he committed no crime as he appeared virtually Friday to be sentenced.

The Republican former president, appearing on a video feed from his Florida club 10 days before he is inaugurated, again pilloried the case, the only one of his four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will.

“It’s been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election, and obviously, that didn’t work,” Trump said.

Trump, seated in a dark suit, appeared on a video screen in the courtroom with with one of his lawyers at his side, as he called the case “a weaponization of government” and “an embarrassment to New York.”

The case is utterly replete with reversible judicial error, and it’s notable that Merchan is a Democrat donor and his daughter raised millions of dollars for Democrat politicians off the case.

Jonathan Turley, prior to the outcome, noted that the Supreme Court’s demurral from putting a stop to the sentencing largely took for granted that Merchan wouldn’t impose any punishment…

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the sentencing of President-elect Donald Trump to go forward today. The bare majority was secured when Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted with their liberal colleagues, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. However, part of the rationale for the decision was that Acting New York Justice Juan Merchan indicated that he was going to issue an unconditional discharge without any jail or probation. The question is whether Merchan could pull a bait-and-switch and decide to impose punishment. It is highly unlikely but intriguing.

President-elect Donald Trump struck the right note and declined to criticize the Court. He simply stated that “This is a long way from finished and I respect the court’s opinion.”

Some of us predicted this result and specifically noted that Chief Justice Roberts would not want to issue a stay. Roberts prefers regular order and, like many jurists, prefers for cases to be finalized to allow for a complete appellate review. They tend to oppose interlocutory appeals for that reason.

In his earlier order, Merchan discussed various options and only said “an unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow Defendant to pursue his appellate options.”

That is where some of us said that this case would land after the conviction. After the election, such a sentence became all but certain. It is the only option that would avoid the constitutional problems — and likely reversal — for Merchan.

The majority took that as a done deal and noted that the President-elect would not have to attend in person and would not face any punishment. The Court may believe that it has sealed Merchan’s suggestion in legal amber.  There is little likelihood that Merchan will depart from the course, but could he?

The answer is probably yes. The Supreme Court did not issue a conditional order that the sentencing is allowed if it is unconditional.

That makes this notably informal. Defendants are allowed to address the court before sentencing and no sentence is finalized until the sentencing hearing. What if Trump came in and expressed open contempt for Merchan and mocked the case? Some judges might take such an allocution moment to increase punishment.  Merchan could threaten contempt but that increasing punishment would go against the operating assumption of the Court’s 5-4 decision.

The Supreme Court decision itself does not order Merchan to issue an unconditional discharge. It simply treats it as a done deal.

So everything is fine, right?

Well, no, actually. The lawfare still took place. Time and money in massive amounts were wasted on an illegitimate pursuit of Trump for something which was never a crime. Turley addresses that…

Today, we will see the ignoble end to a raw form of lawfare by one of its most committed warriors. After millions in costs and years of litigation, it will result in no punishment. What the left will get is the labeling of Trump as a convicted felon, a fact that will then be repeated like a mantra by the media. Merchan can be expected to add to that rhetoric with punishment soundbites, as he has in the past.

However, the result shows how this case was more inflated by the Goodyear blimp. It will be punishment by soundbite in a case based on a ridiculous criminal theory. He will be sentenced without our even knowing what jurors concluded happened in the case since Merchan did not require them to agree on the specific motivation or purpose of underlying acts.

The benefit for President Trump is that he can finally appeal this case. While expectations are low for the New York court system which failed to prevent the political weaponization of its criminal justice system, it can now be reviewed in its totality and eventually go back the United States Supreme Court.

Will Trump get his convictions expunged on appeal? You’d have to think so given all the utter mismanagement of this kangaroo-court show trial. But that doesn’t get to the heart of the problem, which is that the Left has not paid for its sins. Trump’s victory in November was a necessary redress of this abuse, but it’s hardly sufficient.

Lawfare must be answered with lawfare.

In this case there’s an added dose of vitamins, because there is almost certainly a RICO case to be made from the Merchans’ antics and those of Fat Alvin Bragg, the corrupt leftist district attorney in New York who brought this prosecution. Certainly there’s a case to be made for Conspiracy Against Rights as well.

Trump said this isn’t over. It shouldn’t be. But from now on it ought to be the Trump White House going on offense, and that should be a fearsome sight.