The Justice Department now enters a second Trump administration with less authority to pursue a president than it has had in half a century.

Justice Juan M. Merchan gave Donald J. Trump a symbolic punishment. The judge said that leniency was due the office of the president, not the man who will soon hold the title.

The phone call centered on a former law clerk of Justice Alito’s. In the eyes of the Trump team, the clerk still needed to prove his loyalty to the president-elect.

President-elect Donald J. Trump is trying to expunge his conviction before he is inaugurated. He would be the first felon elected to the Oval Office.

A Manhattan judge has already indicated that he will spare Donald J. Trump from jail time, but the president-elect is seeking to avoid the symbolic blow of the criminal proceeding.

Donald J. Trump has successfully defeated or impeded many legal challenges against him over the storming of the Capitol, but eight lawsuits on the matter remain in the courts.

© Kenny Holston for The New York Times