Donald Trump was given a no-penalty sentence in his “hush money” case Friday by a Manhattan judge — cementing his status as the first convicted felon to become president but freeing him of the threat of jail or fines as he readies to re-enter the White House.

Trump, 78, vowed that he would appeal in a statement on Truth Social posted shortly after the sentencing, in which he wrote that “Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt.”

“Today’s event was a despicable charade, and now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice,” he said.

Justice Juan Merchan — who oversaw a trial in which jurors found Trump guilty of concealing a payoff that hid a sex scandal from voters — sentenced the Queens native to an “unconditional discharge” during a brief hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court.

“Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume your second term in office,” Merchan told the Republican president-elect, who appeared via video from Palm Beach, Florida in front of two American flags.

Trump could have faced up to four years behind bars on each of the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. 

Instead, Merchan’s decision means Trump will not face any jail time, probation, or fines.

The sentencing crystallized the soon-to-be 47th commander-in-chief’s historic distinction of being the only US president ever to be convicted of felony criminal charges — and allows him to finally appeal the guilty verdict he claims stemmed from a political “witch hunt.”

While Trump was forced to sit in court daily for the course of his nearly two-month trial last year, the president-elect was allowed by Merchan to appear virtually for Friday’s hearing.

Before the sentence was read out, Trump, sitting next to his attorney Todd Blanche, blasted the case as an “injustice” — and reiterated his claim that he was targeted in a political hit job.

“This is a case that should have never been brought,” he railed during a six-minute, rambling address from his Mar-a-Lago club. “It is an injustice of justice.”

“The fact is, I’m totally innocent, I did nothing wrong,” he added, as he peered into the camera, wearing a dark suit and red tie, with his shoulders hunched.

He then ripped the trial as an “embarrassment to New York.”

“I would just like to explain that I was treated very unfairly, and I thank you very much,” he added at the end of his rant.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the only prosecutor to score a conviction against Trump and an elected Democrat, attended the hearing, sitting in the second row.

He looked on as prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the court that the verdict in the case was “unanimous and decisive” and “must be respected.”

Steinglass then blasted the incoming president for using “dangerous rhetoric” throughout the trial, referencing Trump’s threats on the judge and prosecutors.

“Such threats are designed to have a chilling effect, to intimidate those who have a responsibility to enforce our laws…because they fear he is simply too powerful to be held to the same rule of law as the rest of us,” Steinglass said.

“Put simply, this defendant has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system, and has placed officers of the court in harm’s way.”

Steinglass added that probation officers who interviewed Trump before his sentencing found that he “sees himself above the law” and “won’t accept responsibility for his actions.”

Before handing him the unconditional discharge — the most lenient sentence allowed — the judge told Trump that his presidential election victory scored him special legal protections “that extend well beyond those afforded the average defendant, who winds their way through the criminal justice system each day.”

“Ordinary citizens do not receive those legal protections,” Merchan said. “It is the office of the president that bestows those far reaching protections to the office holder.”

The judge added: “It was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that you should once again receive the benefits of those protections.”

But Merchan also told Trump that even the “extraordinary breadth” of those protections cannot negate his guilt.

“One power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” he said.

The sentencing came after a years-long legal saga that reached a sensational boiling point when Trump was diverted from his campaign for his Manhattan trial, in which jurorsheard evidence that Trump paid off porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to keep them quiet about alleged trysts.

Trump sat glumly at the defense table — with occasional outbursts of anger — while hearing X-rated testimony from Daniels and his former fixer-turned-star witness Michael Cohen, a convicted perjurer.

He vehemently denied the charges, including in rants during the trial to TV cameras outside the courtroom.

Friday’s sentencing came after a flurry of last-minute pleas made in vain to state and federal appeals courts by Trump’s lawyers. The attorneys claimed that pressing forward with the proceeding would unconstitutionally interfere with the president-elect preparing for his second term.

Trump was originally set to be sentenced on July 11, 2024, in the final stretch of his presidential campaign. 

But Merchan agreed to push back the proceeding to let Trump’s lawyers argue in favor of reversing the conviction due to the Supreme Court’s bombshell “presidential immunity” ruling, in which the justices ruled that presidents cannot be prosecuted for their “official acts.”

Trump’s lawyers argue that the trial was “tainted” by evidence introduced from his time in the White House.

Bragg’s office has countered that covering up a payment to a porn star from the Oval Office is not one of a president’s “official” acts. The impact of any evidence that jurors arguably saw inappropriately is minor, they added.

The hush money case was the only one of four criminal cases that Trump faced to go to trial.

Federal charges that he hoarded classified documents at Mar-A-Lago and tried in vain to overturn the results of his 2020 presidential election loss to President Joe Biden before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol have both been put on ice that he’s been elected president.

A state case in Georgia charging him with trying to tamper with the Peach State’s 2020 election results, meanwhile, is in limbo after an appeals court tossed a local district attorney from the case after a controversy over her romantic relationship with the man she hired to lead the prosecution.