“Donald Trump will have no penalty for criminal wrongdoing, which is an affront to accountability and to a system where no one is above the law, though the judge had little alternative,” said one ethics expert.

After being convicted of 34 felonies in New York last year, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday received an unconditional discharge during a sentencing hearing that came just over a week before the Republican’s second inauguration.

Just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court—which includes three Trump appointees—allowed the hearing to proceed, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan declined to impose fines or sentence Trump to prison for his crimes, which related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 presidential election cycle.

“Donald Trump will have no penalty for criminal wrongdoing, which is an affront to accountability and to a system where no one is above the law, though the judge had little alternative,” said Noah Bookbinder, president and CEO of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “But now, formally, the next president of the United States is a felon.”

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