Donald Trump has vowed to “keep fighting” after he was found guilty on all counts in his New York hush money trial, making him the first former or sitting President to be convicted of a crime. Here’s an excerpt from the BBC’s report:
A panel of 12 Manhattan jurors unanimously convicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records on Thursday, with sentencing now set for July 11th.
Over a six-week trial, the court heard from 22 witnesses, including Stormy Daniels, whose alleged sexual encounter with the former President was at the centre of the case.
Trump, 77, called the verdict a “disgrace”, adding: “We’ll fight to the end.”
The former President was accused of having concealed a payment to buy the silence of Ms. Daniels, a former adult-film star, in the final days of his 2016 election campaign.
Prosecutors had argued that, by approving a scheme to disguise the money as legal expenses, Trump broke election law.
His sentencing will come just days before the start of the Republican National Convention, when he is due to be confirmed as the party’s candidate to face Joe Biden, the Democratic incumbent, in November.
Twitter/X has predictably lit up with reaction to the verdict…
So, what does this mean for the upcoming U.S. presidential elections? Can Donald Trump still be President? Definitely, according to CNN.
The U.S. Constitution lays out just three requirements for presidential candidates. They must:
- Be a natural born citizen.
- Be at least 35 years old.
- Have been a U.S. resident for at least 14 years.
Trump meets all three requirements. There is, arguably, another criterion laid out in the 14th Amendment, where it states that no one who has previously taken an oath of office who engages in insurrection can be an officer of the U.S. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition. That’s not happening any time soon. …
It is technically possible, although perhaps unlikely for a first-time offender, that Trump could be sentenced to prison time.
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said most Class E felony convictions, the least serious type of felony in New York, result in non-prison sentences – often a combination of probation, fines and community service.
As a former President, Trump enjoys lifetime Secret Service protection and he will continue to get protection wherever he is, according to Anthony Guglielmi, Chief of Communications for the Secret Service.
“Today’s outcome has no bearing on the manner in which the United States Secret Service carries out its protective mission. Our security measures will proceed unchanged,” Guglielmi said in a statement to CNN.
But will Trump’s conviction sway the dial in November and damage Trump’s bid for re-election? The Spectator’s Freddy Gray is not so sure:
This is an extremely strange moment for American democracy. Polls suggest that independent voters – the people who decide American elections – will not vote for a man who is a convicted felon.
But now Donald Trump, currently the favourite to win re-election in November, has been found guilty, on 34 counts, of falsifying business records – and nobody knows if that verdict will make him more popular or less.
On the one hand, a court has decided that, yes, he deliberately altered his financial accounts, possibly for election campaign reasons back in 2016.
He is now a convict. Trump has a murky past, and his dodgy history now appears to have caught up with him.
On the other hand, this Manhattan case has always felt like a political hit job – proof of what Trump has long claimed, that the system is rigged against him, that the Democrats will stop at nothing to keep him out of power. …
The ‘lawfare’ against Trump so far has been a boon for him politically. …
The question now is whether Americans have enough faith in their justice system to believe that Trump is a criminal – or will they think that Joe Biden, and his party, are the real villains?
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