Was Donald Trump required to report to New York City probation services immediately after his conviction on May 30, 2024, and did he fail to do that? No, that's not true: There was no mandate for the former president to go straight to the NYC Probation Department. Transcripts show Judge Juan M. Merchan informed Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche, in the courtroom that instructions would be provided for scheduling a probation interview and obtaining a probation report.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Threads by my_babyanme on June 2, 2024. The post's caption said:
Following his felony convictions. Donald Trump was required to report to probation services to prepare a post conviction pre sentencing report for Judge Merchan. Trump blew off the requirement and left the courthouse before he visited with his new probation officers. That may have been a big mistake
This is what the post looked like on Threads at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Mon Jun 3 14:51:03 2024 UTC)
The post provided no attribution or other evidence to substantiate the claim.
Court transcripts
Transcripts from the day Trump was convicted on 34 counts in the hush-money trial tell a different story than the claim put forward in the social media post. On the final page of the 50-page transcript for court proceedings that day, Judge Merchan said this to the former president's attorney:
We will order a Probation Report.
Mr. Blanche, the clerk of the court will give you instructions on how to go about scheduling that Probation interview and getting that Probation Report.
Additionally, Will Scharf, a member of Trump's legal team, told ABC's "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos the following in a June 2, 2024, interview:
The president's going to cooperate with the pre-sentence investigation. And we're going to speedily appeal this unjust verdict. I think this case is replete with reversible error. We plan to vigorously defend President Trump's rights in the appellate courts all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
This is what the post (archived here) looked like on X, formerly Twitter. You can play it below:
"The president's going to cooperate with the pre-sentence investigation and we're going to speedily appeal this unjust verdict," former Pres. Trump's attorney Will Scharf tells @GStephanopoulos.
-- This Week (@ThisWeekABC) June 2, 2024
"I think this case is replete with reversible error." https://t.co/JwY684N0mM pic.twitter.com/EHVXMcaUZl
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Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims concerning Donald Trump can be found here and stories about Judge Merchan can be found here.
