THE ESCAPE ARTIST — For almost two months this past spring, the national media descended on downtown Manhattan to get a glimpse of a historic proceeding that felt monumental — the former president standing for trial in the first of four criminal cases. Today, however, Donald Trump’s once seemingly formidable legal troubles concluded with a whimper, with the president-elect sentenced to an “unconditional discharge,” a rare sentence that comes with no penalty or restriction. He’ll enter the White House as a felon, the first-ever. That’s not inconsequential. But he’ll still occupy the White House, having successfully run a legal gauntlet that once seemed fatal to his political chances. Justice Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s Manhattan trial, said it was the “only lawful sentence” that he could hand down given Trump’s impending return to the Oval Office. Justice Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s Manhattan trial, said it was the “only lawful sentence” that he could hand down given Trump’s coming return to the Oval Office. The split screen — a mere seven months apart — is both a validation of Trump’s overriding legal strategy (stall, delay, fight to win back the White House and all your problems will be moot) and a powerful reminder of how he won the public relations battle concerning his legal peril, making them largely an afterthought in the minds of millions of voters by November. Before Trump’s Manhattan trial began, polling suggested quite clearly that Trump’s legal jeopardy would hurt him in the general election. But a unique set of circumstances helped him escape that fate. Now, unlike in early 2017 or for much of the last eight years, he’s headed into the White House without any obvious legal problems hanging over his head. Part of Trump’s success at dodging legal or political responsibility can be attributed to how rapidly and profoundly the circumstances around him changed. A year ago, Trump still had nominal opposition for the GOP nomination and the prospect of an election rematch clouded by various trial dates. Then, Joe Biden had a disastrous debate performance, Trump was shot at, Kamala Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket and the guilty verdicts receded in voters’ minds. That wasn’t his only improbable feat. The three other, more serious, indictments — two election subversion cases in Washington D.C. and Georgia and a case involving Trump removing classified documents from the White House and leaving them scattered around Mar-a-Lago — never went to trial at all, thanks to successful delay tactics from his legal team. Today’s sentencing clarified an important point that future prosecutors would do well to remember: Trump’s insistence that the prosecutions against him were politically motivated proved convincing to many voters. In part, this has to do with the particulars of the hush money case itself. The weakest both legally and politically, the Manhattan DA relied on key testimony from untrustworthy witnesses (Michael Cohen, David Pecker) to prove a complex scheme whose particulars were hard to follow. The prosecution was successful legally, with Trump found guilty on all 34 counts by a jury, but fell short in the court of public opinion. His relentless attacks succeeded beyond expectation. The prosecution itself admitted as much today, as prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told Merchan, “This defendant has caused enduring damage to the public perception of the criminal justice system.” Trump went so far as to insist the trial actually helped propel him to the White House. “The people of our country got to see this firsthand, because they watched the case in your courtroom … and then they voted and I won,” the president-elect said as he attended his hearing virtually today. There’s no indisputable evidence that the trial helped his cause with the voters. What is clear is that it did not manifestly hurt him. And even though he spent his weeks in New York this past spring complaining bitterly about his former home, Trump may have been aided by the trial’s venue. Unlike Washington, which is often deeply attuned to the political vicissitudes of the moment, New York is characterized by an attitude of almost purposeful indifference. The city is too big and too committed to forward movement to allow even a world historical event like the trial of a former president to throw it off its regular axis. The few square blocks around 60 Centre Street may have been awash with media professionals and Republican officeholders but outside of that relatively tiny slice of the city, there was little interruption. Directly to the northeast, Chinatown looked no different. To the south, the men and women hustling around the Financial District or enjoying a solemn Pret a Manger sandwich didn’t have their attention turned towards the former president’s presence in town. Even the spot where a man self-immolated outside the courthouse was cleaned up quickly. The location of one of the biggest trials in American history didn’t have to try very hard to move on, because it was never the central preoccupation of the city in the first place. There was a spectacle, and then it was gone. In November, voters across the country treated it the same way. Trump, though, doesn’t have such an easy time forgetting. As he prepares to head back to the White House, he’s constructing a legal team composed mostly of loyalists who have defended him either in court or on television. His legal tribulations might be ancient history in the minds of voters, but they’re shaping how he approaches his second term. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh.
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