President-elect Donald Trump to learn punishment at his hush money conviction sentencing today

President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday morning — in a historic first for the United States — for his conviction on charges that he falsified business records as part of a conspiracy to hide payments he made to silence an adult film star heading into the 2016 presidential election.

It is unclear if he will appear in-person or receive his punishment remotely via video feed.

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the spring trial last year, indicated in a decision last week that he will not give the incoming president any jail time.

Trump, who will be sworn into office in 10 days, lost several last-minute bids to put off the punishment phase of his trial, petitioning the state appellate court, the New York Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that as an incoming president, he should be immune from prosecution. He was denied in each venue.

The 9:30 a.m. hearing will cap a two-year criminal trial, beginning with his indictment in March 2023, on 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements to Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen who had paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to stay silent about an alleged affair with the president-elect.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought the charges under rarely used state statutes that made it a felony to doctor business records in an attempt to sway the outcome of an election.

Trump criticized the prosecution as politically driven and said that Bragg, who is Black and a Democrat, targeted him because he is white and Republican.

Prosecutors called 20 witnesses, including adult film star Stormy Daniels, former White House communications director Hope Hicks, National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and disbarred former Trump fixer Michael Cohen.

It took the jury a day and a half to return a guilty verdict on all counts. Trump faced up to four and half years behind bars, but legal scholars said it would be unlikely for a first-time offender the president-elect’s age to get prison time.

The sentence, originally set for July 11, 2024 was postponed after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that sitting presidents are immune from criminal prosecution. The 6-3 decision also found that some unofficial acts performed by sitting presidents could also be exempt from prosecution, but the high court did not elaborate.

Defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove immediately requested that the punishment phase of the trial be postponed until they could figure out how the decision affected the case.

Merchan pushed the sentencing date into September, the heart of the contentious 2024 presidential campaign.

The judge, beset with defense attorney calls to step down from the case over accusations that he had a conflict of interest in the case because his daughter worked for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, rescheduled the sentencing again for Nov. 26, three weeks after the election.

Merchan denied any conflict and even sought an advisory opinion from a state judicial ethics advisory board, which cleared him to continue to preside over the case.

The judge clearly felt stung over the accusations and said so in a recent decision.

"The frequency of the claims and escalating rhetoric in each subsequent motion — does not render the claims true or valid," he said of the conflict of interest claims. "They are not and it is irresponsible and deeply concerning for counsel to insist on advancing these claims."

Ultimately, on Jan. 3, Merchan rejected the defense lawyers arguments Trump was immune from prosecution because he is now president-elect, and blamed him for the delays in the case.

The judge ruled that the sentencing must go forward now before the inauguration ceremony to affirm the rule of law in this country.

"Indeed, the sanctity of a jury verdict and the deference that must be accorded to it, is a bedrock principle in our Nation's jurisprudence," Merchan wrote in his decision.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intercede on the incoming president’s behalf on Thursday and cleared the way for the sentencing to go forward, making Trump the first president in U.S. history to be a convicted felon.