NEW: CNN’s Top Legal Expert Explains Why Trump ‘Gets A Benefit’ From His Sentencing

President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced in his hush money case on Friday morning after the Supreme Court on Thursday denied to pause proceedings. However, the Republican “gets a benefit” from one final perp walk in court before taking office, a top CNN legal expert claims.

Elie Honig, a prominent on-air attorney for the network, said Trump has a wealth of options for appealing his conviction on 34 felony counts of concealing a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. By receiving his sentence on Friday from Judge Juan Merchan – who has already indicated jail time is essentially out of the question – Trump may empower his attorneys to seek a full appeal of the conviction which Supreme Court justices said may have substantial grounds. “I think it was perfectly sound,” Honig said. “Basically, the justices in the majority said two things. First of all, they said ‘What‘s the harm? You‘re going to get sentenced to zero. You can do it by Zoom. You can roll out of bed and do it. And, second of all, you do maybe have substantial issues.’ I think he has substantial issues on appeal, but you can handle them through the full appeal process that will follow your sentencing.”

The high court on Thursday ruled in a split 5-4 decision that Trump may not quash his sentencing hearing on immunity grounds, with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the court’s three liberal justices. On Thursday, Honig told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Trump “actually gets a benefit” from the speedy decision, especially now that he’s been sentenced to an “unconditional discharge” that frees him to see an appeal. “Trump actually gets a benefit by being sentenced [Friday], which is once that sentencing is over as of [Friday], then he can take his full appeals,” Honig went on. “He can go up to the New York Courts of Appeals. He can go maybe to the U.S. Supreme Court and say, ‘The charge against me was unconstitutional,’ which I think it may be. He can say that the jury was not properly instructed, but if he had gotten his way, if he was not sentenced tomorrow, he would not have been able to appeal.”

Before the ruling, Honig explained that a sentence of unconditional discharge amounts to “essentially nothing.” Under New York law, the sentence finalizes Trump’s conviction, but he would not be imprisoned, fined, or placed on probation, according to the Daily Caller. Other legal observers on MSNBC noted that there are some formalities that come with the decision — for example, Trump must relinquish his firearms and gun permit to the NYPD now that he is a convicted felon. Trump is expected to appeal the conviction and maintain his innocence. “I never falsified business records. It is a fake, made up charge,” the Republican president-elect wrote on his Truth Social platform last week. “There was nothing else it could have been called. I was hiding nothing.”

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