Last Friday, New York Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Donald Trump’s hush money trial, refused to quash the indictment and set aside the jury verdict which made the president-elect a convicted felon. He announced he would sentence Trump on January 10 and, on Monday the judge denied Trump’s motion for a stay.

Along the way, he delivered a stern rebuke to our soon-to-be president and an important reminder to the rest of us that in a free country, even the most powerful people cannot erase their past. Merchan’s ruling, as the New York Times reported, denies the president-elect “the opportunity to clear his record before returning to the White House.”

“To dismiss the indictment and set aside the jury verdict,” Merchan wrote, “would not serve the concerns set forth by the Supreme Court in its handful of cases addressing presidential immunity nor would it serve the rule of law.”

Merchan has set an example of resistance on the cusp of a second Trump presidency. His ruling will serve this country well as we enter a period in which the occupant of the Oval Office intends to bend judges and others to his will and in which serving him will be the standard against which government officials, journalists, and others will be judged.

Judge Merchan did us all a service by delivering that lesson.

Trump got the message, but he did not like it. He lashed out at the legal proceedings that........

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