New York Democrats concluded their lawfare gambit against Donald Trump with a whimper on Friday as Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan followed through on sentencing the president-elect.

In a decision that demonstrated the whole case was nothing but politically motivated lawfare, Merchan handed Trump a sentence of unconditional discharge, which carries no penalties or fines. It officially seals the 34 felonies a New York jury convicted him of, but it illustrates how meaningless those trumped-up charges really were.

The rationale, according to the judge, was the presidency: “The considerable, indeed extraordinary, legal protections afforded the office of the chief executive is a factor that overrides all others.” Merchan then played up the bogus notion that Trump only got away with his crimes because of the special privileges he received thanks to his winning the election. “Ordinary citizens do not receive those legal protections,” Merchan huffed. “It is the office of the president that bestows those to the office holder. It is the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that you should once again receive the benefits of those protections.”

Ordinary citizens are not subject to hysterical and overreaching Democrat lawfare, either. As constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley observed, “It is a case based on a non-crime. [Manhattan District Attorney Alvin] Bragg took a long-dead misdemeanor and zapped it back into life with a novel and unfounded theory. By using federal violations that were never charged, let alone tried, Bragg turned a misdemeanor into dozens of felonies and essentially tried Trump for federal offenses.”

The fact of the matter is that the American people provided the true verdict regarding the Democrats’ lawfare gambit against Trump.

Merchan’s sentencing acts as little other than a lame attempt to smear Trump with the title of the first felon elected president, though that will likely be only temporary. Given the nefarious nature of the charges and the clear bias of Merchan’s handling of the trial, the only question is how long before this decision is overturned and thrown out.

Now, only New York’s judiciary system is on trial. Will the state’s appeals court correct this legal malfeasance, or is the Empire State’s judiciary so corrupt that it will take the federal appeals courts? Turley further notes, “The verdict is in. The New York legal system has rendered it against itself.”

At least DA Bragg can brag about how he followed through on his campaign promise to Get Trump™. However, Bragg’s lawfare against Trump backfired spectacularly. Indeed, Trump can partly thank Bragg for helping him defeat Kamala Harris.

With this sentencing, the Democrats’ lawfare may have finally run its course. Unlike in 2016, Democrat lawmakers are not sending virtue signals of resistance to Trump. For example, for the first time since 1988, no Democrat objected to the certification of a Republican’s Electoral College victory. Trump proved them wrong and showed them that the plurality of the American people were on his side.

However, the Democrats will not simply surrender and let Trump move forward with his agenda with little resistance. They will regroup. The question is, have they learned that their lawfare tactic is not a winner? Time will tell.