Unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, President-elect Donald Trump will be sentenced on Friday for falsifying business records to cover up his 2016 hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. But although a New York jury convicted Trump of 34 felonies in that case last May, Judge Juan Merchan has indicated that he plans to impose "a sentence of unconditional discharge," meaning Trump will face neither jail nor probation. Which makes you wonder: What was the point of prosecuting this case?
The point, it seems clear, was to undermine Trump's prospects in the 2024 election by tarring him as a convicted felon—a status that Democrats emphasized while vainly trying to turn voters against him. But deploying that label required a dubious legal theory that aimed to punish Trump for conduct that was not inherently criminal.
