It’s Official: Trump Gets Off Scot-Free Despite 34 Felony Convictions

The sentencing for Donald Trump’s conviction in his hush-money trial has been canceled indefinitely.

Judge Juan Merchan of the Supreme Court of the State of New York on Friday granted Trump’s application for a stay of sentencing, meaning the president-elect will not face justice anytime soon for his only criminal conviction, on 34 felony counts.

Trump has argued that the entire case should be thrown out after the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, and this decision is a step in that direction. But, Merchan has made no mention of throwing out his felony convictions, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office seems to be waiting out the president-elect’s four-year term and then revisiting sentencing.

The charges came from Trump making $130,000 in hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up their affair before the 2016 election through his then-fixer, Michael Cohen. A jury found the president-elect guilty in May, making it the first and only time a former president was successfully prosecuted on criminal charges.

At one time, Trump was facing three other indictments—one related to election interference in Georgia, a federal election interference case related to January 6, and his mishandling of classified documents. But now, they’re all moot until he’s done with his second term as president, as his strategy to delay his cases and win the election worked almost perfectly.

This story has been updated.

It’s weeks out from Election Day, and President-elect Donald Trump still hasn’t signed the legal documents required to formally start the transition of power, according to the White House.

Trump’s failure to submit the documents has waylaid a number of essential processes for a peaceful and organized transition, including security clearances, essential briefings, and providing resources to Trump’s transition team before the inauguration, reported USA Today.

The MAGA leader is noticeably overdue on the necessary materials: typically, the documents are filed a month before a presidential election.

“Our teams continue to stay in touch,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing Thursday. “As of now, the Trump-Vance transition team has not yet entered into the agreements with the White House and the General Service Administration.”

President Joe Biden promised a “peaceful and orderly transition” mere days after the election.

His Chief of Staff Jeff Zients reached out to Trump’s transition team after the forty-sixth and forty-seventh president met in the Oval Office last week, and has “consistently reiterated” wanting to work with Trump’s team in order to ensure a proper transition, according to Jean-Pierre.

“We’re going to continue to engage with the Trump transition team to ensure that we do have that efficient, effective transition of power,” Jean-Pierre said.

Trump’s team has not provided an explanation for the unusual delay. Instead, Brian Hughes—a spokesperson for the Trump transition team—told USA Today that Trump’s attorneys “continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act.”

“We will update you once a decision is made,” Hughes told the publication.

The far-right Hungarian prime minister and friend of Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, is thumbing his nose at the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Orbán has invited Netanyahu to Hungary in defiance of the ICC’s arrest warrants, which were also issued for former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif. The Hungarian leader called the warrants a “complete defamation” of international law and claimed they will worsen conflict in the Middle East.

“This is wrong in itself,” Orbán told Hungarian state radio Friday. “So there is no other choice here: We have to confront this decision, and so later today I will invite the prime minister of the Israelis, Mr. Netanyahu, to visit Hungary.”

Netanyahu and Gallant were charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, which has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians including more than 17,000 children, all likely massive undercounts. Estimates in July from the medical journal The Lancet say the death toll ​​could exceed 186,000.

Trump and America’s far right have long admired Orbán, with conservatives praising his authoritarian style of leadership. The conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, which authored the Project 2025 manifesto, goes out of its way to promote the Hungarian leader. Trump and Orbán get along very well, with the president-elect meeting him multiple times over the past year.

The two authoritarians have a love of Netanyahu in common, with Trump praising the Israeli leader and absurdly accusing President Biden (who called the ICC warrants against Netanyahu “outrageous”) of being too tough on him. As long as Orbán and Trump are in charge of Hungary and the U.S., respectively, wanted fugitive Netanyahu can probably count on the two countries to provide him safe havens from the ICC arrest warrant, because fascists look out for one another.

Senator Tom Cotton threatened to invade a U.S. ally on behalf of Israel’s genocidal regime. 

The International Criminal Court issued fresh arrest warrants Thursday for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau and Israel’s former Foreign Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as  Hamas’s military leader Mohammad Dief, alleging that they’d committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

While only a handful of the 124 member countries have signaled their willingness to follow through on the warrants, the Netherlands, where the ICC is located, made itself particularly clear: “We are obliged to cooperate with the ICC … we abide 100 percent by the Rome Statute,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp on Thursday.

Cotton, a staunch ally of Israel, made a thinly veiled threat to take military action against the Netherlands if they deign to comply with the warrants they are legally required to comply with as ICC member states. 

“The ICC is a kangaroo court and Karim Khan is a deranged fanatic. Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it,” the Arkansas Republican wrote in a post on X. 

The Hague Invasion Act empowers the United States to free its allies from the clutches of the ICC using “necessary and appropriate” means—but Cotton’s implication promises something much darker and full of “woe.” 

It seems Cotton has maintained the same bloodthirsty attitude from more than a year ago, when he said that “Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza. Anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas—Hamas killed women and children in Israel last weekend.”

It’s clear that Cotton cannot see that any other state actor has a responsibility for Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 44,000 people—including the U.S., which has readily funded Israel’s atrocities. The U.S. has consistently avoided any measures holding Israel accountable, backing off its hollow threats to withhold military support.

The Republican vision for the Department of Education’s destruction goes far beyond Donald Trump.

On Thursday, Republican Senator Mike Rounds introduced a bill that would totally abolish the department. “The federal Department of Education has never educated a single student, and it’s long past time to end this bureaucratic Department that causes more harm than good,” said Rounds in a statement. “For years, I’ve worked toward removing the federal Department of Education. I’m pleased that President-elect Trump shares this vision.… This legislation is a roadmap to eliminating the federal Department of Education by practically rehoming these federal programs in the departments where they belong.”

House Republicans are attacking the Department of Education too. Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie told ABC News that he’d bring forth department-destroying legislation of his own in the coming weeks.

“There’ll be one sentence—only thing that will change is the date: The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2026,” Massie said. He has been trying to tear down the Department since 2023.

The bills will likely have strong support from the president-elect, as the elimination of the department was a central component of his successful campaign.Trump’s nominee for the Department of Education, former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, also shares these wanton views. And with Republican control imminent at all levels federally, it seems possible that this bureaucratic nightmare could soon become a reality.

Donald Trump has tapped one of his impeachment attorneys, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, to lead the Justice Department.

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans—Not anymore,” Trump said Thursday in a statement. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”

Bondi replaced ex-Florida Representative Matt Gaetz as the top contender for attorney general after he withdrew his nomination Thursday. Insiders believed that Gaetz never had a chance at passing the Senate’s rigorous nomination process, especially as the alleged sexual abuser faced intense scrutiny over the details of two federal investigations related to sex trafficking accusations.

Gaetz hurriedly withdrew his nomination following news that the House Ethics Committee had obtained evidence that there was a second incident in which the ex-congressman slept with a minor.

As one of the few Trump nominees with relevant experience, Bondi could prove equally if not more dangerous than Gaetz in the crucial law enforcement role—as well as a relative shoo-in. Assuming that all Democrats will vote against Trump’s nominees, the president-elect can only afford to lose three Republican votes to squeeze his candidates into the executive branch. Bondi, who served more than 18 years as a prosecutor, stands against a background of Trump nominees that authoritarianism scholars have described as “anti-qualified.”

Bondi and Trump have been longtime allies. In 2013, his charity (illegally) issued $25,000 to her reelection bid for Florida attorney general—while her office was weighing whether to pursue charges against Trump University (she ultimately did not). Bondi was a star player on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment, and was a vocal opponent of Jack Smith during Trump’s post-2020 legal woes, accusing the special counsel of “weaponising our legal system” for trying to hold the former president’s feet to the fire.

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had the perfect response to Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s new gig as Congress’s billionaire babysitter.

The House Oversight Committee announced Thursday that it would create a new subcommittee expressly for the purpose of working with the Department of Government Efficiency, the meme-based advisory group led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, that plans to slash trillions of dollars’ worth of essential government services for the purpose of eradicating the administrative state and racking up new government contracts to replace it. 

Greene is reportedly set to head the new subcommittee, and Ocasio-Cortez managed to find the silver lining.

“This is good, actually. She barely shows up and doesn’t do the reading,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X Thursday. “To borrow a phrase I saw elsewhere, it’s like giving someone an unplugged controller.”

“Absolutely dying at those two now getting assigned the ‘privilege’ of ‘working’ with MTG,” she wrote in a separate post. “That is actually hilarious. Enjoy, fellas! Very prestigious post you have there.”

Representative Jamie Raskin also weighed in on just how ridiculous Republicans’ plan is to shrink the size of government by creating a new committee. 

“It’s hard to keep track of all the new departments and bureaucracies the Republicans are setting up to study the size and efficiency of government,” Raskin said in a statement. “But isn’t that what Chairman Comer and the Committee on Oversight and Accountability actually said they were doing over the last two years? Where’s their report and recommendations? Perhaps the impeachment flop derailed them a bit.”

“So now a noted student of American government, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, will chair a subcommittee to work with two unvetted billionaires who stand to receive billions more in government contracts and subsidies from the government under Trump,” Raskin said. “That’s why Democrats will stay focused on waste, fraud, abuse and corruption.  The government belongs to the people, not the billionaire oligarchs.”

Musk and Ramaswamy have already outlined their plans to strip funding from public broadcasting, Planned Parenthood, and “entitlement programs,” which likely include Medicare and Medicaid. It may be a blessing that they now have to work with the congressperson more interested in pushing outlandish, and antisemitic, conspiracy theories than actually governing. 

With fresh arrest warrants being issued by the International Criminal Court on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have fewer travel options, as a handful of foreign countries have announced that they will comply with the ICC’s mandate.

The ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu, Israel’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, alleging that all parties have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Deif’s charges have to do with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead; Netanyahu and Gallant are being charged over Israel’s brutal war in the year since, which has killed at least 44,000 Palestinians—which is very likely an undercount. Estimates by the medical journal The Lancet from July say the death toll ​​could exceed 186,000.

Israel claims Deif was killed in August; if true, it no longer matters whether or where he is arrested. Netanyahu and Gallant are another story entirely, as they risk arrest if they travel to any countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute. Israel and the United States are not among those countries, but many others are, including Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that the country “will abide by all the regulations & rulings of the international courts.”

A spokesperson for France’s foreign ministry, Christophe Lemoine, said that while the warrants were a “complex legal issue,” the nation supports the court’s actions. “Combating impunity is our priority,” Lemoine said. “Our response will align with these principles.”

Leaders of the Netherlands gave a clearer answer, saying Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot on Dutch soil. “The line from the government is clear. We are obliged to cooperate with the ICC ... we abide 100 percent by the Rome Statute,” Dutch foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp said in Parliament Thursday. The Netherlands is home to the court, located in The Hague.

In all, 124 countries are party to the Rome Statute, including every country in the European Union; under the terms of the treaty, Netanyahu and Gallant shouldn’t be able to travel to any of them without being arrested. Other signatories to the Rome statute include the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia.

But the United States is not, and has rejected the warrants out of hand, with the National Security Council saying that “the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter. In coordination with partners, including Israel, we are discussing next steps.”

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have been accused of war crimes going back to 2023, so this decision from the ICC will be seen by foreign rights observers as a long time coming. The U.S. has thus far avoided any measures holding Israel accountable, whether ignoring its own laws and pronouncements or failing to restrict weapons exports to Israel in Congress. The question is whether the U.S. will intervene to prevent the enforcement of these arrest warrants.

With his nomination to run the Department of Justice hanging in precarious balance, a timely news story finally proved to be the deal-killer for Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz. At issue was a second, unreported sexual encounter between Trump’s attorney general nominee, Matt Gaetz, and the underage girl he had sex with at a sex party in 2017—to which the House Ethics Committee was alerted. 

This second encounter, reported on Thursday by CNN, may very well be the biggest reason that Gaetz withdrew his nomination. Gaetz and Vice President–elect JD Vance spent Wednesday lobbying Republican senators to overlook Gaetz’s infamous allegations of sexual misconduct and trafficking. The way the CNN report is written points to an uncanny timing behind Gaetz’s decision to pull out:

The woman, who was 17 years old at the time, testified that the second sexual encounter, which has not previously been reported, included another adult woman. She also testified to both sexual encounters in a civil deposition as part of a related lawsuit, sources said.

After being asked for comment for this story, Gaetz announced he was backing out as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee.

Gaetz has since played things very close to the vest. “I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday.  I appreciate their thoughtful feedback—and the incredible support of so many,” Gaetz wrote on X. “While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.” President-elect Trump thanked Gaetz on Truth social and told him he had a “wonderful future.”

The Florida lawmaker tried to rid himself of multiple investigations into his alleged pecadillos by resigning from Congress right before the House Ethics Committee was set to release its probe on him. This strategy has backfired tremendously, as he is now out of two jobs. 

The New York Times reported that four Republican senators were poised to oppose Gaetz’s nomination: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, John Curtis of Utah, and Mitch McConnell. Gaetz’s replacement for the nomination remains to be seen; it’s equally unclear where Gaetz goes from here. President-elect Trump, in a statement on Truth Social, appeared to close the door on the possibility of Gaetz serving in a meaningful role in his administration: “Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!” But that future is looking pretty bleak.

Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to be the next director of national intelligence may not be making you happy, but it’s certainly making someone happy: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In Russia, the response to the former Hawaii representative’s nomination has been “gleeful,” The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Russian newspaper, fawned over Gabbard in an article last week, noting that “the CIA and FBI are trembling.” The article also noted that Ukrainians considered Gabbard to be “an agent of the Russian state.”

Trump’s decision to nominate Gabbard, of all people, signals his distinct willingness to cozy up to Putin.

“Nominating Gabbard for director of national intelligence is the way to Putin’s heart, and it tells the world that America under Trump will be the Kremlin’s ally rather than an adversary,” authoritarian scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat told the Times.

Gabbard has defended Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, claiming that the U.S. had provoked Russian aggression and that Ukraine housed U.S.-funded biolabs that were developing secret bioweapons—a piece of foreign state propaganda that earned her the reputation as a Russian asset.

Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger sounded the alarm about Gabbard on MSNBC, noting that, if confirmed, Gabbard would be responsible for putting together the president’s daily briefings, and would likely include Russian propaganda.

Former CIA Director John Brennan also voiced his concerns about Gabbard on MSNBC Tuesday. “[Gabbard] has done things and said things over the years that really [have] caused great concern about where her sympathies and sentiments lie, but also she has no experience and background in the intelligence profession,” he said.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told MSNBC that Gabbard had been known to “toe the line of brutal despotic regimes.”

Russia isn’t the only authoritarian state Gabbard’s defended: She’s also backed Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.