After four weeks of witness testimony and two days of jury deliberations in the first criminal trial of the former US president, Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records on Thursday. In convicting the presumptive Republican nominee for November’s election, a Manhattan jury made the prominent real estate developer a felon in the city where he first achieved enjoys its outstanding reputation.
Trump remained motionless as the jury foreman read out “guilty” on all charges he faces in the case. Then, before the cameras in the hallway, he returned to the topic he had discussed throughout the trial.
“This is a fraudulent and disgraceful trial,” he said. “The real verdict will be given by the people on November 5.”
The case against Trump stems from the circumstances of his uncertain run for the White House in 2016, which hinged on the image he had built over decades. With elections approaching that year, the emergence of Access Hollywood the tape threatens his viability as a candidate, which is already a strange proposition. He has long been known as a self-styled playboy, but his comments during the recording shifted his campaign into damage control mode and etched the words “ take them by the pussy” into American election history.
It was in that context, prosecutors argued, that Trump tried to conceal his decades-long liaison with the porn star. Daniels storms. His old fixer Michael Cohen arranged for her to receive $130,000 for her silence. Trump won the election. When details of the deal became public in 2018, Daniels and Cohen became national figures in their own right, leading to a psycho-sexual scandal that has few similarities. The charges against Trump as a matter are relatively mild — allegations that he manipulated financial records to disguise Cohen’s repayments — but they also reflect the view that he conspired to commit fraud. legally to win the 2016 election.
When Daniels testified during the trial, jurors heard her describe meeting Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006 before he invited her to his hotel room that night. She said having sex with him made her uncomfortable – she regretted not saying no – but she was nervous and scared. He discussed a potential role for her on Famous Apprentice. Over the course of four days, Cohen’s testimony revealed his dissatisfaction with his former boss, an ongoing feud that made him a minor celebrity and social media phenomenon.
Those days of testimony, which revolved around dramatic personalities and combustible relationships, attracted a lot of attention, and the line to get into Manhattan Criminal Court stretched endlessly. However, the environment outside the court was largely silent. OJ Simpson’s death, just days before jury selection began, has prompted some to theorize almost facilely about possible comparisons to the trial’s historic spectacle court hears the football player’s murder in 1995. Most of what has been litigated in the past month has been thoroughly researched by the national press.
Still, the trial often provides a measure of Trump’s cultural influence as he prepares to run for re-election to the White House. The witnesses are a survey of people who were attracted to him for one reason or another: Daniels, Cohen, former National questioner publishing company David Pecker, former White House communications director Hope Hicks. Stuck in his hometown for several weeks, Trump took the opportunity to interact with working-class New Yorkers—visiting a construction site, a fire station, and a pub—and, on stage, a rally in the Bronx, was celebrated by a couple. rappers are out on bail for gang crimes. Some days during the proceedings, he was accompanied in court by the former NYPD commissioner. Bernie Kerik and former Hells Angels leader Chuck Zito; about others, by Republican politicians included JD Vance, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Vivek Ramaswamy, And Mike Johnson.
The general atmosphere of the proceedings, from start to finish, could best be described as downright Trumpian. During jury selection in April, a Puerto Rican IT consultant living on the Lower East Side told the court he found the former president “interesting and mysterious.” He was ultimately not selected as a panelist. That weekend, he said United States today his name is Herson Cabreras and build.
“The guy walked in and everyone went crazy,” he said. “That’s what I want to say.”
