“It has been a very good week here in New York,” said Juliette Michaelson, MTA’s deputy chief of policy and external relations and a chief architect of the agency’s congestion pricing plan. “Just look out the window — there’s less traffic, quieter streets, and I think everybody’s seen it.”

While anecdotal evidence has abounded in the nine days since New York started charging drivers to drive on Manhattan’s surface streets at or below 60th St., Monday marks the first time the MTA has released data obtained by the tolling network.

According to the data collected last week, 499,016 vehicles entered the congestion tolling zone last Monday, the first weekday since tolling began. Those numbers steadily rose through the work week, with 561,604 vehicles entering the zone on Friday.

On average, that’s 539,217 vehicles a day — 7.5% fewer vehicles than the agency said would typically enter during a work week in January.

“These are significantly lower volumes than we would have expected without the program,” Michaelson said.

For those who do drive — or ride on the MTA’s buses — the data shows that the reduction in crossings has had a sizable impact on most commute times.

Comparing last Wednesday to an average Wednesday in January 2024, travel times improved across the board at all river crossings in the congestion zone.

A drive into Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel Wednesday was 39% faster than last January, according to the data. The Queens-Midtown Tunnel sped up 39%, and the Brooklyn Bridge sped up 28%. The smallest improvement was at the Manhattan Bridge — which still had 10% faster travel times than in January last year.

“For one day of data, to see such consistently high trip-time reductions is just very, very significant,” Michaelson said.

Similarly, east-west streets across the congestion zone saw speeds increase. With the exception of westbound traffic on 42nd St. and 23rd St., crosstown traffic times fell between 6% and 36%.

North-south travel times remained largely the same, however. Traffic on Third Ave. and Eighth Ave. sped up by more than 20%, but Second, Fifth and Ninth Aves. saw 1% longer travel times.

Michaelson and other MTA officials emphasized that the data is preliminary, and that the travel time data in particular is based on just one day of congestion pricing.

“This is still preliminary data,” Michaelson said.  “Travel patterns, we expect, will change.”

The MTA has not yet crunched the numbers on what the data means for tolling revenue — an income stream that is meant to back $15 billion in bonds to fund some of the agency’s biggest expansion and repair projects.

John McCarthy, MTA’s head of policy and external relations, told reporters to expect early revenue revenue data in “weeks, not months.”

The data comes as members of New York’s Republican delegation traveled to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend and reportedly discussed plans to kill the congestion toll with President Elect Donald Trump.

Trump has been a longtime opponent of the plan, and vowed early in his presidential run to undo it if elected — though it remains unclear what legal paths he would have to up-end a toll that’s administered by the state and has already been approved by federal regulators.

Asked about Trump’s threat prior to the MTA’s Monday data release, Mayor Adams said he wanted more information, and didn’t want to “throw more hysteria into this law of the land.”

“If the president decides an action such as that, I don’t control it,” he said.

Tiffany Raspberry, Adams’ intergovernmental affairs director, and Camille Joseph-Varlack, his chief of staff, will take on the deputy mayor roles effective immediately, Adams said at his weekly press conference Monday morning at City Hall.

Joseph-Varlack is becoming the “deputy mayor of administration,” while Raspberry’s being given the title “deputy mayor of intergovernmental affairs,” Adams told reporters. Raspberry’s deputy mayor title is new to the municipal bureaucracy, and Adams’ office said she’ll now coordinate intergovernmental affairs teams “across all city agencies,” while Varlack’s portfolio is expanding to include oversight of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.

Joseph-Varlack, who will also retain her chief of staff role, already makes a base annual salary of $287,663, the deputy mayor level pay grade, and won’t get a raise, according to Adams.

Raspberry, a longtime Adams ally who worked on and helped raise funds for his 2021 campaign, currently makes $260,000 and will get a salary bump to the deputy mayor level, he said.

Prior to the promotion, Raspberry applied recently to become Fordham University’s new vice president of external affairs — a job she ultimately didn’t get, according to a source directly familiar with the matter. A since-closed job posting for the Fordham post says it has a minimum starting salary of $310,000.

Adams, who has pleaded not guilty in a federal corruption indictment, has seen a large number of senior advisers depart his administration in recent months, several after becoming ensnared in corruption investigations of their own.

A Fordham University spokesman declined to comment Monday. Raspberry didn’t return a request for comment, but Adams spokeswoman Amaris Cockfield said her Fordham application played no factor in her promotion.

The elevation of Joseph-Varlack and Raspberry means Adams now has eight deputy mayors, more by one than other recent mayors, according to Louis Cholden-Brown, an attorney and City Charter expert. Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Ed Koch at certain points in their tenures had seven deputies, the highest number Cholden-Brown said he could recall.

With Josephine Stratman 

The victims have not been publicly identified. The injured people were seriously injured and taken to a local hospital, WABC reported.

All four victims were in the same car, and only one car was found at the scene, according to Newsday.

The vehicle was traveling eastbound through North Massapequa on the Southern State Parkway and crashed near Exit 30 around 11 p.m., WPIX reported. The eastbound lanes were closed for six hours overnight but reopened before 6 a.m. Monday for morning commuters.

Regular drivers told News 12 Long Island that the area is known for speeding and reckless driving.

“The Southern State Parkway going east between exits 29 to 31, frequent accidents because people are zigging in and out and they’re speeding,” driver Ashley McQueen told the outlet.

The wrecked car landed upside down in the middle of the grassy median between on- and off-ramps, and there were collision marks on a tree, according to News 12. Additionally, an exit sign had been knocked down, and car parts were strewn around the area.

New York State Police are investigating the incident.

Walden’s $629,736 cash pull in the latest period, which spanned between Oct. 8 and this past Saturday, is larger than what any of Mayor Adams’ other challengers have raised in a single previous reporting window. However, it won’t be clear until Wednesday’s public disclosure deadline how much money the other 2025 mayoral candidates, including Adams, raised in the most recent span.

Walden, who shared his fundraising numbers exclusively with the Daily News ahead of the deadline, said he also has about $300,000 of his own money in his independent mayoral campaign account, giving him roughly $930,000 in cash on hand as June’s primary elections loom six months away. Only ex-City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Adams had larger 2025 campaign cash balances as of the last reporting period, which ended Oct. 7.

“Friends and strangers stepped up in huge numbers to pledge their support for our campaign and an independent path forward for New York City. We achieved our goal; out-raising all the challengers in less than half the time they had before I entered the race,” said Walden, who has never before campaigned for public office. “We will be fully funded by the height of the campaign season. And we will be pounding miles of pavement to speak with voters across the five boroughs about my plan for restoring integrity and accountability to City Hall.”

Still, Walden isn’t expected to be eligible for public matching funds when the Campaign Finance Board issues its second round of payments Wednesday.

Walden’s $629,736 came from 834 individual contributors, 492 of whom are New York City residents, he said. In order to be eligible for matching funds, mayoral candidates need to raise at least $250,000 from 1,000 city residents.

Walden told The News he hasn’t decided yet whether he’s going to participate in the public matching funds program. If he opts out of it, he could accept as much as $3,850 from each donor, more than the $2,100 that candidates who participate in the program can collect.

The sizable first fundraising run from Walden, who launched his campaign Oct. 23, gives him a competitive edge as he mounts a third-party mayoral bid.

As an independent, Walden hasn’t absolutely ruled out running in the June 24 Democratic primary in which Adams already faces a sprawling field of challengers. But Walden says he may seek the Republican nomination, too, in addition to running as an independent in November’s general election.

Petitioning for the primaries begins at the end of February.

A seasoned litigator with a history of representing various New York politicians, including potential 2025 mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo, Walden has pitched himself as a government expert inspired by Michael Bloomberg.

With Adams’ federal indictment looming over the 2025 race, Walden has made rooting out corruption in city government a key plank in his campaign, recently floating a proposal to give the city Department of Investigation more power to go after crooked politicians. Walden is currently representing Joseph Jardin, a top FDNY official who alleges he was pressured by Adams to approve the opening of the Turkish consulate in Manhattan in 2021, a key episode in the mayor’s indictment, to which he pleaded not guilty.

Previously, Stringer held the distinction of drawing in the most cash in a single reporting period out of all the candidates running against Adams, raising just shy of $411,000 for his Democratic mayoral campaign between January 2024 and July 2024.

Stringer was the only candidate who received the Campaign Finance Board’s first public matching funds payment on Dec. 16, netting him $2 million for a total cash balance of $2.3 million.

Adams, whose 2025 campaign has a $3 million cash balance, was also eligible for matching funds last period. But the CFB denied him the payment, citing concerns about his indictment, which alleges he solicited illegal straw donations and bribes from Turkish government operatives in exchange for political favors. Adams is expected to stand trial in April, just weeks before the Democratic mayoral primary.

Several other 2025 candidates, including Comptroller Brad Lander, have said they expect to be eligible for matching funds Wednesday. All the candidates in the mayoral field, which also includes Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos, Brooklyn state Sen. Zellnor Myrie and ex-Bronx Assemblyman Michael Blake, are expected to have their latest fundraising hauls disclosed Wednesday as well.

In December, Gov. Hochul and state lawmakers reached a deal to block adoptive parents from collecting checks on behalf of kids no longer in their care, including those forced back into the foster system. Final details of the law were ironed out this week as the Legislature reconvened for the 2025 session.

“This bill makes critical changes that will support families that participate in the adoption process,” Hochul wrote in a Dec. 21 memo. “However, changes were necessary to ensure funds are directed to parents who are appropriately caring for their child, and exclude individuals in situations of abuse or neglect.”

“I am pleased to have reached an agreement with the Legislature to enact these changes. On the basis of this agreement, I am pleased to sign this bill.”

For at least a decade, adopted children and their advocates warned payments were set up in such a way that parents could collect thousands of dollars each month for children with disabilities or otherwise considered “hard to place” — even after they were returned to foster care or taken in by another family.

In some cases, young people were forced to go out on their own or wound up in homeless shelters, including Essence Flowers, who last year told the Daily News about the struggle to rebuild her life after she was forced out of her adoptive home.

In New York City alone, at least $3.5 million in adoption subsidies were sent to families no longer eligible for the support, a 2021 comptroller audit found.

But reforms took time. Lawmakers had to narrowly craft the bill to avoid creating incentives for adopted teens to leave home or jeopardizing part of the adoption subsidy funded with federal money.

As part of the deal reached between Hochul and the Legislature, some parts of the law remain on pause until they receive federal approval. Changes resulting from that agreement will be passed as a chapter amendment this session.

At the end of last year, there were 6,559 families in New York City receiving subsidies on behalf of more than 10,000 adopted children, according to the Administration for Children’s Services. Forty-four children were back in foster care after previously being adopted.

Monthly checks start at more than $1,000 per month in the city and can exceed $3,000 for disabled and “hard to place” children, according to the latest rates.

Advocates cheered the law’s passage after a protracted campaign that could be traced back to at least 2014.

“It’s been a long-time coming,” said Betsy Kramer, the director of policy and special litigation at Lawyers for Children. “And it’s long overdue, and will bring great relief to many children and to the people who step into care for children when their adoptive parents are no longer providing any support.”

“There are too many young people who aren’t being supported by their adoptive parents, and that money can make the difference for them between having a stable, safe place to live and being homeless.”

The administration is also planning to close 13 additional migrant shelters by June, according to the Mayor’s office, including Clinton Hill’s Hall Street shelter, which has been the subject of much controversy in the area.

“The policies we implemented, and the tremendous work of the dedicated public servants who execute our mission, show how our administration continues to creatively and effectively manage an unprecedented crisis,” Adams said in a statement.

“The additional closures we are announcing today, provides yet another example of our continued progress and the success of our humanitarian efforts to care for everyone throughout our system.”

The new site, located in an industrial section of the Bronx off Bruckner Boulevard, will house 2,200 single men in the seven-story warehouse after in opens in the next couple months. It was granted a slew of temporary permits last month to convert the space into a shelter, city records show.

The space will be operated by the city’s Housing Recovery Operations office and is intended to fill the gap left by the closure of the huge tent site at Randall’s Island and others, according to City Hall.

“We should not be housing people shelters to begin with,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition. “We should be giving them the services that they need to get on their feet and actually get out of shelter and into permanent housing This circling the wagon on creating more and more shelters, is not going to help the people who are directly impacted.”

Councilmember Diana Ayala, whose district contains the shelter site, said she has concerns about the building as a potential target for federal immigration officials.

“I don’t like the idea of congregated settings specifically just for the asylum seekers, because I’m concerned about the Trump administration getting access to addresses,” she said. And it makes it easier for ICE to single out a specific location.”

The new opening comes as the city has entered into a new phase of the migrant crisis: Various shelter closures underway around the city have pushed migrants into new shelters.

Last week, single men living at a Bushwick shelter were pushed out and transferred to Randall’s to make way for adult families. At Floyd Bennett Field, which was fully vacated earlier this week, families were sent to shelters across the city, including some to the Hall Street shelter set to be closed, according to Ariana Hellerman, a volunteer with mutual aid group Floyd Bennett Field Neighbors.

Although the city has seen its migrant population in shelters consistently decreasing for 27 weeks straight, according to City Hall, there are still tens of thousands of asylum seekers in the city’s care. As of Sunday. Jan. 5, over 50,000 migrants remains in the local shelter system, according to City Hall data. The city has opened nearly 200 sites since spring of 2022. 

Adams has promised future closures and emphasized that city initiatives such as case management and 30- and 60-day notices have caused the migrant crisis to ease up.

By June, the city plans to close over a dozen more shelters, including the Clinton Hill shelter and the Watson and the Stewart hotel sites. These closures will further reduce the city’s overall capacity by 10,000 beds — not counting the beds added by the Bruckner site.

Adams has touted decreases in migrant spending as a further sign the worst of the crisis is behind the city — although members of the City Council and the city’s Independent Budget Office have said the administration inflated cost estimates for migrant expenses.

The Bronx building was purchased by developers Maddd Equities and South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, or SoBro, in 2023, city records show. Before the pandemic, the building was converted into an office building.

The resignation came after The News asked Adams’ office late Thursday for comment about the fact that Bernard, who leads the city’s largest evangelical church, maintains a residency on Long Island. Under city law, members of Charter Revision Commissions must be New York City residents.

“Reverend Bernard has informed the commission that he will be stepping down due to the time commitment that serving would require,” Frank Dwyer, a spokesman for the commission, said in response to the inquiry. “The commission is grateful for his initial offer to serve. A suitable replacement will soon be named.”

A News review of voter rolls, property documents and other records raised questions about whether Bernard met the residency requirement. He is actively registered to vote as a Republican in Suffolk County, listing a one-family, six-bedroom home in St. James as his home address in Board of Elections paperwork.

Property records show Bernard, 71, and his wife, who have six children, bought the home for $1.4 million in 2021. They took out a $1.1 million mortgage on the sprawling 2.3 acre property that they finished paying off in March 2024, records show. On his personal Facebook page, Bernard lists a PO box near the St. James home as his mailing address.

Conversely, The News found no record of Bernard or his wife owning property in the city since the mid-1990s. One of the questions The News asked Adams’ office was whether he maintained a residence within the five boroughs that was not reflected in property records, such as a rental apartment.

Bernard didn’t respond to calls and texts this week.

He and his wife have owned and sold several properties on Long Island over the past few decades, records show. A New York Times profile of Bernard from 2009 said he and his wife “live with three dogs on Long Island.”

A former-city Law Department attorney who served as a counsel on one of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Charter Revision Commissions said the residency requirement exists with good reason.

“The charter is the city’s constitution and any amendments to it will have the force of law, so the requirements are there to make sure someone who doesn’t have a stake in the city can’t change [the charter],” said the attorney, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Bernard, who’s known as the “power pastor” for his political connections and has more than 32,000 parishioners at his Christian Cultural Center church in East New York, was among 14 people picked by Adams in December to be part of his second revision commission, which he tasked with crafting City Charter amendments that could boost housing production.

Bernard was one of only two members on Adams’ new commission absent from the panel’s first meeting this past Tuesday. At the outset of the meeting, commission members introduced themselves by stating which of the city’s five boroughs they reside in.

Bernard’s resignation comes after Adams’ first Charter Revision Commission launched last year also include the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, who sparked residency concerns over his New Jersey home. At the time, Adams’ office said Daughtry was able to serve on the commission because he’s registered to vote in the city and splits his time between Brooklyn and New Jersey.

The goal of Adams’ latest commission is to formulate referendum questions to get onto the November 2025 general election ballot. In announcing the panel last month, Adams’ office said he wants it to come up with questions that’d amend the Charter to “combat the city’s generational housing crisis.”

The launch of the mayor’s panel came after Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced plans to roll out her own revision commission. One of her top charter revision priorities has been to give the Council more oversight of city government appointments the mayor can currently make unilaterally.

Due to a quirk in state law, the Council can’t advance referendum questions onto a ballot that includes questions crafted by a mayoral commission. Speaker Adams and her Democratic colleagues have  accused the mayor of launching his latest commission in a deliberate bid to block their effort — a charge he denies.

In spring 2024, Adams launched his first commission, which also ended up blocking the Council from advancing their own set of referendum questions onto this past November’s ballot.

That commission got several questions onto the November ballot that proposed placing more restrictions on the way the Council drafts laws, especially ones related to public safety. All of the questions except one were approved by city voters in November.

With Josephine Stratman 

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said the only lawful sentence he could impose was an unconditional discharge, meaning no jail time, probation, or fines other than around $375 in mandatory court fees, based on the expansive legal protections afforded to the president. 

“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” the judge said, adding they also didn’t diminish or justify the severity of the crimes of which Trump was found guilty.

“Donald Trump, the ordinary citizen — Donald Trump, the criminal defendant — would not be entitled to such considerable protections.” 

The president-elect appeared remotely for the 15th-floor proceeding in lower Manhattan’s 100 Centre St. on Microsoft Teams via Florida, with two American flags as his backdrop. He wore a black suit and a red striped tie and ignored Merchan when the judge wished him a good morning.

In comments to the court, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said prosecutors recommended Trump receive an unconditional discharge based on his status as president-elect.

Regarding Trump’s potential remorse, Steinglass pointed to a line in the nonpublic report filed by Trump’s probation officer, who “noted that the defendant sees himself as above the law and won’t accept responsibility for his actions.”

Steinglass said Trump’s public rhetoric before and after the trial had legitimately endangered officials involved in the case and their families.

“Far from expressing any kind of remorse for his criminal conduct, the defendant has purposefully bred disdain for our judicial institutions and the rule of law. And he’s done this to serve his own ends and to encourage others to reject the jury verdict that he finds so distasteful,” Steinglass said, noting Trump had “ratcheted up” his bombast since Merchan had denied his bids to throw out the verdict. 

“He has been unrelenting in his unsubstantiated attacks upon this court and its family, individual prosecutors and their families, the witnesses, the grand jury, the trial jury and the justice system as a whole.”

The prosecutor said Trump’s threats to retaliate against prosecutors and his other “dangerous rhetoric” sought to have a chilling effect and to intimidate law enforcement “in the hopes that they will ignore the defendant’s transgressions because they fear that he is simply too powerful to be subjected to the same rule of law as the rest of us.”

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, who accompanied him in Florida, said he disagreed with Steinglass’ characterizations. Trump has nominated Blanche to be second-in-command at the Department of Justice. 

When it was Trump’s turn to speak — a moment defendants often use to express remorse in a bid for leniency — the former president singled out prosecutors, talked about his election victory, and riffed on several other topics. He said the case was brought to destroy his reputation and lose him the election, “and, obviously, that didn’t work.”

“The fact is that I’m totally innocent. I did nothing wrong,” Trump said. “I just want to say I think it’s an embarrassment to New York, and New York has a lot of problems, but this is a great embarrassment.”

The president-elect, who incessantly sought to get his case thrown out after a grand jury indicted him in spring 2023, mounted a furious effort to dodge the sentencing, targeting delay bids at four courts. The Supreme Court had the last say in an order late Thursday, in a 5-4 ruling showing the justices were unpersuaded by his claim the hearing would unduly burden his presidential transition.

While the significance of Friday’s proceeding largely came down to symbolism and procedure, it cemented Trump’s status as the first and only U.S. president to be tried and convicted. Trump vowed on Truth Social later Friday to appeal his conviction.

The anonymous Manhattan jury who decided the case found him guilty of 34 felony counts of first-degree falsifying business records on May 30, for which he was initially supposed to be sentenced on July 11. None of the jurors have spoken publicly about their service.

The criminal case centered on Trump’s coverup of payments to Michael Cohen that reimbursed his longtime fixer for silencing porn star Stormy Daniels with $130,000 in the lead-up to the 2016 election, which Trump misclassified as payment for Cohen’s legal services. The porn actor has long claimed she had a sordid encounter with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in 2006, which he denies.

Jurors heard over the more than monthlong trial that Cohen, Trump, and tabloid publisher David Pecker devised a scheme to control what voters knew about Trump’s past in August 2015. Prosecutors argued that the “catch and kill” conspiracy violated New York election law and could be what got Trump elected in 2016.

Former Playboy model Karen McDougal and a doorman at Trump Tower also received payoffs to suppress their allegations of Trump’s sexual exploits, evidence showed, and jurors heard Trump expressed relief that the media didn’t report on Cohen’s payment to Daniels before the election.

In his courtroom remarks, Trump took aim at Cohen, saying, “This is a man who has got no standing. He has been disbarred on other matters unrelated. And he was allowed to talk as though he was George Washington, but he is not George Washington.” 

Trump was placed under a gag order at the trial, which is expected to expire Friday after he spread unfounded conspiracies about Merchan’s daughter online. The order he violated at least 10 times barred him from discussing trial participants, including prosecutors, court staff, and their families, but not the judge or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. 

While he has repeatedly cast himself as a victim of political persecution, a weaponized justice system, and racism against white people by Black prosecutors, Trump’s experience of being found guilty of felonies without consequence is unique.

Facing the prospect of four years in prison on any one of the charges seven months ago, he will instead spend them in the White House.

Bragg’s case was the only one of four brought against Trump after his first term that went before a jury. 

Federal prosecutors recently moved to dismiss two actions accusing him of plotting to overthrow President Biden’s win in 2020 and hoarding classified documents at his country clubs after leaving office – which could have led to steep prison sentences.

Through his second term, he will be protected from the Georgia state case concerning his alleged election subversion efforts.

In his courtroom remarks, Merchan said imposing a sentence was one of a judge’s most challenging decisions. He said the extraordinary legal protections afforded to the office of the chief executive “is a factor that overrides all others” he must respect and follow. 

“I’m referring to protections that extend well beyond those afforded the average defendant who winds their way through the criminal justice system each day. No, ordinary citizens do not receive those legal protections,” Merchan said, looking at Trump. 

“It was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that you should once again receive the benefits of those protections … It is through that lens and that reality that this court must determine a lawful sentence,” the judge added, formally imposing the sentence.

“Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume your second term in office.”

The president-elect is expected to appear virtually at lower Manhattan’s 100 Centre St at 9:30 a.m. before state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who’s said he plans to impose an unconditional discharge, meaning no prison time.

Trump tried to dodge being sentenced in every way he could, firing off a barrage of appeals to four different courts after Merchan scheduled the sentencing last week. The Supreme Court had the last word late Thursday, denying Trump’s request to stop the sentencing from going ahead.

Here’s what to know ahead of the historic hearing.

1. What’s an unconditional discharge?

The sentence Merchan has said he’s “inclined” to impose means what it sounds like — instead of being thrown behind bars, Trump will be discharged without any conditions. 

More typically heard of for Manhattan defendants who receive lenient terms is a “conditional’ discharge, which could see a judge agree to release someone if they agree not to get rearrested for a certain period, attend anger management sessions, go to counseling, do community service, or participate in other forms of rehabilitation.

Often, the agreement can include quitting one’s job if it was where the offense took place. 

Last week, Merchan said Trump’s conviction authorized a term of incarceration — the charges carry up to four years — but that was no longer a “practicable recommendation,” as prosecutors had conceded, with Trump set to return to office. 

Merchan said his proposed sentence would be “the most viable solution to ensure finality” and allow Trump to pursue an appeal of his conviction, which he can’t do until after sentencing. 

2. What will happen at the hearing?

With Trump set to appear virtually, the proceeding will differ from his attendance at trial, which saw him accompanied by the Secret Service each day and attendees subjected to rigorous security checks. 

Merchan is expected to hear from prosecutors before he hands down the sentence. Trump will also have a chance to address the court, which many defendants use as an opportunity to convince the judge of their remorse. Trump continues to maintain his innocence and has said he will appeal.

Sentencings also frequently feature victim impact statements, though it’s not clear whether prosecutors have anyone lined up to speak about harm suffered as a result of the hush money scheme. 

3. What exactly did Trump do?

On May 30, Trump was found guilty of falsifying 34 New York business records in 2017 after he had moved into the White House – representing 11 checks to his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, 11 corresponding invoices, and 12 ledger entries.

The payments reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 he paid porn star Stormy Daniels 11 days before the 2016 election so she wouldn’t go public with her account of an alleged sordid sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. 

Prosecutors alleged Trump falsified the records to cover up the scheme that violated a New York law that makes it illegal for people to conspire to promote or prevent a person’s election to public office by unlawful means, like tax crimes, campaign finance violations and falsifying bank records.

Cohen and tabloid publisher David Pecker at trial testified that they devised the scheme to get Trump into office in August 2015, planning with Trump to hide unflattering information about his past from voters and ruin the reputations of his opponents.

In addition to Daniels, the men coordinated silencing former Playboy model Karen McDougal about her claims of a monthslong affair with Trump and Dino Sajudin, a doorman who wanted to sell a story about Trump fathering a child with a maid out of wedlock.

Trump wasn’t the first person to be found guilty in connection to the scheme. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal crimes in 2018, including violating campaign finance laws, and received a three-year sentence. 

Pecker received immunity for his cooperation in Cohen and Trump’s cases and effectively served as the star witness at Trump’s trial, where he told jurors he was still fond of the former president. 

4. Will Trump’s conviction have any impact on his presidency?

Given his status as the incoming commander-in-chief, in addition to his wealth, Trump is not expected to face the same setbacks New Yorkers convicted of felonies commonly struggle with in finding employment or accessing housing. He’s covered for the next four years.

As Trump is a U.S. citizen, he’s not at risk of deportation. Some countries have restrictions for tourists with criminal records — including Canada, the U.K., Australia, Japan and Mexico — which means Trump could, in theory, need to apply for a waiver to travel to certain nations.

As a felon, Trump won’t be able to own a gun or serve on a jury anytime soon. Had he been convicted in another state, he might have lost his right to vote, but New York allows convicted felons to vote if they are not incarcerated. 

The conviction will have little to no meaningful impact on Trump’s life compared to the outcomes of several civil cases in New York where he is facing financial penalties. 

In February 2024, a Manhattan judge ordered Trump to pay around $455 million, including interest, to the New York attorney general after finding him liable for manipulating the value of his real estate assets by a matter of billions of dollars for years. Trump has appealed the judgment and is awaiting an answer from a midlevel New York appeals court. 

And Trump owes E. Jean Carroll a total of $88.8 million after being found liable for sexually abusing her in a Midtown dressing room in the nineties and defaming her during his first term in office and after. Trump is also appealing the judgments in that case.

5. What about Trump’s other cases?

The criminal case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was the first of four filed against Trump after his first term and the only one to make it before a jury. 

In June 2023, the Department of Justice charged him with hoarding classified documents impacting national security after leaving office and poorly storing them at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The DOJ moved to close the case after his election victory. Had that case made it to trial and Trump been found guilty, he could have faced up to 100 years in prison. 

Months later, in August 2023, the DOJ brought another indictment against Trump, charging him with conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to disrupt an official proceeding, and related offenses for his alleged efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election. Those charges, which were also dismissed after his election victory, carried decades in prison. 

A federal appeals court on Thursday said that special counsel Jack Smith, who handled the federal cases against Trump, could release a report into his investigation in the election subversion case. Trump’s lawyers have aggressively sought to stop the report’s release. It does not appear the DOJ will release a report on the classified documents case anytime soon.

Weeks after the D.C. indictment, Trump was charged in a fourth case in Fulton County, Ga., concerning his alleged efforts to overturn President Biden’s win in Georgia. The case has been heavily backlogged, including with DA Fani Willis recently being removed after a Georgia appeals court found her relationship with a special prosecutor created an “appearance of impropriety.” Trump will be protected from the state-level prosecution in Georgia while he’s president.