When a jury in Manhattan yesterday convicted Donald Trump of all 34 crimes in the hush-money case, it was of course a historic moment involving a former president of the United States.
And yet he could also be the next president of the United States.
There's nothing stopping Trump from running — and winning — even if he's in jail.
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Another way to look at it is that President Biden may still fail to defeat a man convicted of criminal charges — which explains why leading Democrats are privately panicking, as Politico put it, at the prospect of their leader cannot win another term.
Trump seemed genuinely upset about the conviction as he spoke to reporters outside the courthouse, calling the verdict a disgrace, repeating his attacks on Judge Juan Merchan and saying the real test would come in November.
Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower on Thursday, May 30, 2024, after being found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. (Felipe Ramales for Fox News Digital)
Trump's base may be largely immobile at this point. He has consistently emphasized that this case, involving the $130,000 Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels, and the other three charges stem from the Biden administration's weaponization of the law enforcement system.
The vast majority will stand by their man, even though it took the jury only eleven hours to convict the ex-president on all counts.
The judge will sentence Trump on July 11, just days before the Republican convention that will nominate him for a third time.
The Biden campaign hastily released a statement saying that “no one is above the law.
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“Donald Trump has always wrongly believed that he would never face consequences if he broke the law for his own personal gain. But today's verdict does not change the fact that the American people are faced with a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out. from the Oval Office: At the ballot box, convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.
Both parties agree on this.
Former President Donald Trump will appear in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Thursday, May 30, 2024. Jury deliberations in Donald Trump's criminal hush-money trial enter a second day as jurors tackle the arduous task of assessing the former president's guilt and innocence based on the facts of the case. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Swimming Pool)
Pre-trial polls showed that nearly a third of Republicans would be less likely to support Trump if he were found guilty of criminal charges. But now that it's happened, will that still be true?
Given the tension of the race in battleground states, even if 2 percent of Republicans changed their minds about Trump, it could affect the outcome.
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And yet a majority of Democrats appear to have concluded that Biden, at age 81, does not have the mental acuity or stamina to serve another four years.
Trump's conviction does nothing to alleviate democratic obligations such as inflation and the porous border.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at a news conference after the guilty verdict in former U.S. President Donald Trump's criminal trial on charges that he falsified company records to hide money he paid in 2016 to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in New York, USA, May 30, 2024. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (REUTERS)
Despite eight hours of closing arguments and confusing and overlapping jury instructions by Merchan, jurors chose to believe prosecutor Alvin Bragg's rather thin case.
The judge said they could not convict the suspect based on Michael Cohen's testimony unless they could find corroborating evidence. The jurors clearly concluded that the testimony of witnesses like David Pecker and Hope Hicks, along with a stack of emails, text messages and banking information, constituted such corroboration. Trump's defense never followed the paper trail — including the 11 reimbursement checks signed by the president — because they could not provide an alternate version of events.
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So the country remains divided as ever. This was either the most blatant political persecution in American history or an unprecedented attempt to hold a former leader accountable.
Trump will of course appeal, and history will judge.
