Donald Trump was found guilty of breaking the law by a New York jury, after he tried to influence the 2016 election unfairly by making an illegal payment to a porn actor. This makes him the first former American president to be convicted of a serious crime.
Trump looked serious as the decision was read. People outside were cheering and their voices could be heard in the hallway of the courthouse’s 15th floor. It took more than nine hours for the decision to be made.
“This trial was unfair and shameful,” said Trump angrily to the reporters after he left the courtroom. “The final decision will be made by the people on November 5th. ” They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here. = They are aware of what happened, and everyone knows what took place here.
Judge Juan Merchan will decide the punishment on July 11. This is just a few days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The GOP leaders still strongly support him and are likely to officially choose him as their nominee at the convention.
The decision is a big legal problem for Trump and could mean he might go to jail in the city where his actions with the tabloid press helped him become famous and eventually president. As he tries to become president again in this year’s election, voters have to decide if they are okay with the way Trump acts.
Trump is likely to challenge the decision and will have a difficult situation when he goes back to campaigning because he has been found guilty. There are no scheduled campaign events right now, but he is expected to appear at Trump Tower on Friday and traveled to a fundraiser in Manhattan on Thursday. This was planned before the verdict, according to three people who know his plans but cannot speak about it publicly. Trump’s campaign raised money after the verdict. They asked for donations and said Trump was a “political prisoner. ”
The charges for faking business records can result in up to four years in prison. It’s not clear if the prosecutors want to send the person to prison, and the judge may or may not decide to do that.
Trump can still try to become president, even if he goes to jail.
Trump is being accused of three serious crimes, but the case in New York might be the only one that is finished before the November election. This makes the outcome even more important. The verdict has clear legal and historical meanings, but its impact on politics is not as clear. It might strengthen people’s existing opinions about Trump instead of changing them.
For another person running for president at a different time, having a criminal record would likely ruin their chances. But despite two impeachments, claims of sexual abuse, investigations into his connections to Russia, and trying to change the election results, Donald Trump’s political career has not been destroyed. There have also been scandalous stories about him, like when he bragged about touching women inappropriately on a recording.
Voters have known about the general accusations in the case for many years. These accusations are considered less serious than the allegations in three other cases where he is charged with harming American democracy and mishandling national security secrets.
Before the decision was made, Trump’s campaign said that whatever the jury decides, it wouldn’t change how people would vote and that the election would be determined by things like inflation.
However, the decision is expected to allow President Joe Biden and other Democrats to strengthen their arguments that Trump is not capable of being in office. The White House only made a quiet statement saying they respected the legal process. On the other hand, the decision will give the likely Republican nominee more reason to say he is unfairly treated by the legal system and that it is biased against him for political reasons.
Trump said he didn’t do anything wrong during the trial. He didn’t think the case should have been brought to court. He complained about the trial inside the courthouse and had many Republican friends supporting him. He also got in trouble for making disrespectful comments about the witnesses outside of court.
After the decision, Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said on TV that he doesn’t think Trump got a fair trial. He also said they will appeal because the judge didn’t step down and there was too much news about the trial before it started.
Republicans are still supporting the party leader. House Speaker Mike Johnson said it was a bad day in American history and called the case a political move, not a legal one.
The trial of the former American president, Donald Trump, was a big test for the court system because he was well-known and he constantly criticized the case and the people involved in it. The decision from the 12 jurors showed that they didn’t support Trump’s attempts to make people lose trust in the trial or to try to impress them with Republican support.
Bragg said that even though this defendant is very unusual, the trial and the verdict were reached in the same way as any other case, by looking at the evidence and the law without being influenced by fear or preference.
The trial is about Trump lying about his business records to hide a secret payment to a porn actress, Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had an affair with him in 2006.
Michael Cohen, who used to work for Trump, paid $130,000 to keep Stormy Daniels from talking about Trump during the last part of the 2016 election. This is against the law and interferes with the election. When Cohen got his money back, the payments were written down as legal costs. The prosecutors said this was not allowed and was an attempt to hide the real reason for the transaction.
Trump’s lawyers say that the payments were for legal services and were lawful. He said it didn’t happen, and his lawyers said in court that because he’s famous, people try to get money from him by threatening to tell lies about him.
Defense lawyers also said that the hush money deals to hide bad stories about Trump were done for personal reasons like protecting his family, not for political reasons. They also tried to make people doubt Cohen, the main witness for the prosecution. He admitted to breaking the law in 2018 and they say he did it because he doesn’t like Trump and just wants attention and money.
The trial had lots of interesting testimony that went over a part of Trump’s past that we already knew about. This was when his 2016 campaign was in trouble because of a recording from “Access Hollywood. ” In the recording, Trump talked about grabbing women without asking and there were also worries about other bad stories about Trump and sex coming out that would hurt his chances of winning.
Trump did not talk in court, but the people listening heard a secret recording of him talking with Cohen about a $150,000 payment to keep a Playboy model, Karen McDougal quiet about her relationship with Trump. Trump says he did not have an affair.
Daniels said herself that she had a sexual encounter with him in a hotel room in Lake Tahoe. David Pecker, the old boss of the National Enquirer, said he tried to stop bad stories about Trump from getting out. He even had his company buy McDougal’s story to keep it secret.
Jurors also listened to Keith Davidson, the lawyer who arranged the secret money payments for Daniels and McDougal. He explained the difficult talks to make sure that both women got paid for staying quiet. But he also had to deal with tough questions from a lawyer representing Trump, who pointed out that Davidson had arranged similar secret payment deals for other well-known people.
The most important witness was Cohen. He talked for days about how he was involved in the hush money scheme and how he says Trump knew all about it.
“Make sure it’s handled,” he said, quoting Trump.
He showed the jury the clearest connection between Trump and the main accusations by describing a meeting where they planned to pay Cohen back for his legal expenses in small monthly payments.