| |
Trump 1st Former President Convicted 05/31 06:08
Donald Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of
felony crimes Thursday as a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in
a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment
to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Donald Trump became the first former American president to
be convicted of felony crimes Thursday as a New York jury found him guilty of
all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a
hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read as cheering from the street
below could be heard in the hallway on the courthouse's 15th floor where the
decision was revealed after more than nine hours of deliberations.
"This was a rigged, disgraceful trial," an angry Trump told reporters after
leaving the courtroom. "The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people.
They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here."
Judge Juan M. Merchan set sentencing for July 11, just days before the
Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where GOP leaders, who remained
resolute in their support in the aftermath of the verdict, are expected to
formally make him their nominee.
The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to
potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press
helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and
ultimately president. As he seeks to reclaim the White House in this year's
election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness
to accept Trump's boundary-breaking behavior.
Trump is expected to appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as
he returns to the campaign trail tagged with convictions. There are no campaign
rallies on the calendar for now, though he traveled Thursday evening to a
fundraiser in Manhattan that was planned before the verdict, according to three
people familiar with his plans who were not authorized to speak publicly.
He's expected to appear Friday at Trump Tower and will continue fundraising
next week. His campaign was already moving quickly to raise money off the
verdict, issuing a pitch that called him a "political prisoner."
The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars,
though Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would not say Thursday whether
prosecutors intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge
-- who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations --
would impose that punishment even if asked.
The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing
his White House pursuit.
Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the
only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the
significance of the outcome. Though the legal and historical implications of
the verdict are readily apparent, the political consequences are less so given
its potential to reinforce rather than reshape already hardened opinions about
Trump.
For another candidate in another time, a criminal conviction might doom a
presidential run, but Trump's political career has endured through two
impeachments, allegations of sexual abuse, investigations into everything from
potential ties to Russia to plotting to overturn an election, and personally
salacious storylines, including the emergence of a recording in which he
boasted about grabbing women's genitals.
The case's general allegations have also been known to voters for years and,
while tawdry, are widely seen as less grievous than the allegations he faces in
three other cases that charge him with subverting American democracy and
mishandling national security secrets.
Ahead of the verdict, Trump's campaign had argued that, no matter the jury's
decision, the outcome was unlikely to sway voters and that the election would
be decided by issues such as inflation.
Even so, the verdict is likely to give President Joe Biden and fellow
Democrats space to sharpen arguments that Trump is unfit for office, though the
White House offered only a muted statement that it respected the rule of law.
Conversely, the decision will provide fodder for the presumptive Republican
nominee to advance his unsupported claims that he is victimized by a criminal
justice system he insists is politically motivated against him.
Trump maintained throughout the trial that he had done nothing wrong and
that the case should never have been brought, railing against the proceedings
from inside the courthouse -- where he was joined by a parade of high-profile
Republican allies -- and racking up fines for violating a gag order with
inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses.
After the verdict, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said in television news
interviews that he did not believe Trump received a fair trial and that the
team would appeal based on the judge's refusal to recuse himself and because of
what he suggested was excessive pretrial publicity.
Republicans showed no sign of loosening their embrace of the party leader,
with House Speaker Mike Johnson lamenting what he called "a shameful day in
American history." He called the case "a purely political exercise, not a legal
one."
The first criminal trial of a former American president always presented a
unique test of the court system, not only because of Trump's prominence but
also because of his relentless broadsides on the foundation of the case and its
participants. But the verdict from the 12-person jury marked a repudiation of
Trump's efforts to undermine confidence in the proceedings or to potentially
impress the panel with a show of GOP support.
"While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we
arrived at this trial and ultimately today in this verdict in the same manner
as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors, by following the
facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor," Bragg said after the
verdict.
The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up
a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who said she had sex
with the married Trump in 2006.
The $130,000 payment came from Trump's former lawyer and personal fixer
Michael Cohen to buy Daniels' silence during the final weeks of the 2016 race
in what prosecutors allege was an effort to interfere in the election. When
Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses, which
prosecutors said was an unlawful attempt to mask the true purpose of the
transaction.
Trump's lawyers contend they were legitimate payments for legal services. He
denied the sexual encounter, and his lawyers argued at trial that his celebrity
status made him an extortion target.
Defense lawyers also said hush money deals to bury negative stories about
Trump were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his
family, not political ones. They also sought to undermine the credibility of
Cohen, the star prosecution witness who pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal
charges related to the payments, by suggesting he was driven by personal animus
toward Trump and fame and money.
The trial featured weeks of occasionally riveting testimony that revisited
an already well-documented chapter from Trump's past. His 2016 campaign,
threatened by the disclosure of an "Access Hollywood" recording that captured
him talking about grabbing women sexually without their permission, also faced
the prospect of other stories about Trump and sex surfacing that could have
harmed his candidacy.
Trump did not testify, but jurors heard his voice through a secret recording
of a conversation with Cohen in which he and the lawyer discussed a $150,000
hush money deal involving a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had
an affair with Trump. Trump denies that affair.
Daniels herself testified, offering a vivid recounting of the sexual
encounter she says they had in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite. The former publisher
of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified about how he worked to keep
stories harmful to the Trump campaign from becoming public at all, including by
having his company buy McDougal's story.
Jurors also heard from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated the hush
money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal. He detailed the tense
negotiations to get both women compensated for their silence but also faced
aggressive questioning from a Trump attorney who noted Davidson had helped
broker similar hush money deals in cases involving other prominent figures.
The most pivotal witness, by far, was Cohen, who during days of testimony
gave an insider's view of the hush money scheme and what he said was Trump's
detailed knowledge of it.
"Just take care of it," he quoted Trump as saying.
He offered jurors the most direct link between Trump and the heart of the
charges, recounting a meeting in which a plan to have Cohen reimbursed in
monthly installments for legal services was discussed.
And he emotionally described his dramatic break with Trump in 2018, when he
began cooperating with prosecutors after a decade-long career as the
then-president's personal fixer.
"To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I
violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family," Cohen
said.
The case, though criticized by some legal experts who called it the weakest
of the prosecutions against Trump, took on added importance not only because it
proceeded to trial first but also because it could be the only only one to
reach a jury before the election.
The other three -- local and federal cases in Atlanta and Washington
alleging that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election, as well as a federal
indictment in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding top-secret records
-- are bogged down by delays or appeals.
____
Associated Press journalists Ruth Brown, Joseph B. Frederick, John
Minchillo, Mary Conlon, Ted Shaffrey, Cedar Attanasio, Julie Walker, Seth Wenig
and Julia Nikhinson in New York and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington
contributed to this report.
---------
itemid:85558c6d08efb434d05b694364470aa0
|
|
