‘It is the first criminal conviction for Trump, who has also been charged with felonies in three other criminal cases … ’‘It is the first criminal conviction for Trump, who has also been charged with felonies in three other criminal cases … ’he former president of the United States, and the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 election, is now a convicted felon 34 times over.
Even aside from these theatrics, Trump seems to have ushered in his conviction by meddling in the work of his lawyers: throughout the trial, the defense team worked hard to make unlikely, irrelevant claims – like that Trump never actually had sex with Daniels – that fell flat, wasting time and confusing what little argument they had. This, they seem to have done at Trump’s own direction.
The verdict adds a new variable to the ongoing presidential contest: incensed rightwingers, whose media has already spent months working to delegitimize the New York trial as a political witch hunt, will scream invective – and try to fundraise. Some liberals, anticipating defeat the way an abused dog anticipates being hit by the arm that reaches out to hit him, will also wring their hands, worrying that the verdict will somehow ricochet and wind up working in Trump’s favor.