Trump hush money trial highlights: Former U.S. President found guilty on all 34 charges

Supporters of former President Donald Trump, enraged by his conviction on 34 felony counts by a New York jury, flooded pro-Trump websites with calls for riots, revolution and violent retribution.

After Mr. Trump became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime, his supporters responded with dozens of violent online posts, according to a Reuters review of comments on three Trump-aligned websites: the former president’s own Truth Social platform, Patriots.Win and the Gateway Pundit.

Some called for attacks on jurors, the execution of the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, or outright civil war and armed insurrection.

“Someone in NY with nothing to lose needs to take care of Merchan,” wrote one commentator on Patriots.Win. “Hopefully he gets met with illegals with a machete,” the post said in reference to illegal immigrants.

-Reuters

Criminal defendants in New York are typically sentenced within several weeks of conviction, but post-verdict legal wrangling can sometimes lead to months of delays. In the meantime, lawyers and prosecutors will recommend sentences and then argue over them at Trump’s sentencing hearing, where Judge Merchan will make a decision.

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Exonerated “Central Park Five” member and current New York City Council member Yusef Salaam said he didn’t take pleasure in the former president’s guilty verdict “even though Donald Trump wanted me executed even when it was proven that I was innocent.”

Mr. Salaam won a seat on the City Council last year decades after being wrongly imprisoned for rape in a notorious case that roiled racial tensions in New York City in the late 1980s. At the time, Mr. Trump took out large newspaper advertisements calling for New York to reinstate the death penalty. Mr. Salaam, along with four other Black and Latino men, eventually had their convictions vacated in 2002.

“We should be proud that today the system worked. But we should be sombre that we Americans have an ex-President who has been found guilty on 34 separate felony charges,” Mr. Salaam wrote in a post on the social media platform X.

“We have to do better than this. Because we are better than this,” Mr. Salaam said.

-AP

Now that the jury in Donald Trump’s criminal trial has made the historic decision to convict him, the judge overseeing the case will soon face a monumental choice: whether to sentence the 2024 U.S. Republican presidential candidate to time behind bars.

Prison time is rare for people convicted in New York state of felony falsification of business records, the charge Trump, a businessman-turned-politician, faced at his six-week trial. But legal experts said precedent can only be so helpful in guiding Judge Merchan’s decision on the appropriate sentence in the first criminal trial of a U.S. president past or present. 

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Senator Ted Cruz said that this is a dark day for America. “This entire trial has been a sham, and it is nothing more than political persecution. The only reason they prosecuted Donald Trump is because Democrats are terrified that he will win reelection,” he said.

“This disgraceful decision is legally baseless and should be overturned promptly on appeal. Any judge with a modicum of integrity would recognise that this entire trial has been utterly fraudulent,” Mr. Cruz said.

-AP

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche told CNN Thursday evening that Donald Trump wanted to testify in the trial, but “he listened to us and he relied on our counsel and he reached a decision that he thought was right.”

“Of course he wanted to testify. And I don’t say that because that’s what he has said,” Mr. Blanche said. “He wanted to get his story out.”

Mr. Blanche pointed to Judge Juan M. Merchan’s rulings about what could be asked of Mr. Trump if he took the stand, saying “some of those questions were really complicated to answer because there’s still appeals going on.”

“I don’t think there was a conviction because he did not take the stand,” Mr. Blanche added.

-AP

The conviction doesn’t bar Donald Trump from continuing his campaign or becoming president. And he can still vote for himself in his home state of Florida as long as he stays out of prison in New York state.

Leading strategists in both parties believe that Mr. Trump still remains well-positioned to defeat Joe Biden, even as he now faces the prospect of a prison sentence and three separate criminal cases still outstanding. In the short term, at least, there were immediate signs that the guilty verdict was helping to unify the Republican Party’s disparate factions as GOP officials across the political spectrum rallied behind their embattled presumptive presidential nominee and his campaign expected to benefit from a flood of fundraising dollars.

-AP

Texas Senator John Cornyn, who had distanced himself from the former president after the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack of Mr. Trump’s supporters, said “this verdict is a disgrace, and this trial should have never happened.”

“Now more than ever, we need to rally around @realdonaldtrump, take back the White House and Senate, and get this country back on track,” said Mr. Cornyn, who is running to replace Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell when he steps down from the post after the November election. “The real verdict will be Election Day.”

-AP

After Donald Trump is sentenced on July 11, he can challenge his conviction in an appellate division of New York state’s trial court and possibly, the state’s highest court. His lawyers have already been laying the groundwork for appeals with objections to the charges and rulings at trial.

The defense has accused the judge in the trial of bias, citing his daughter’s work heading a firm whose clients have included President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats. The judge ​refused the defense’s request​ to remove himself from the case, saying he was certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”

-AP

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Trump could still vote for himself after hush money conviction if he's not in prison on Election Day

Donald Trump's potential felony conviction in New York won't stop him from voting in Florida's election.

The charge of falsifying business records is a Class E felony in New York, the lowest tier of felony charges in the state. It is punishable by up to four years in prison, though the punishment would ultimately be up to the judge and there’s no guarantee he would give Trump time bars. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to say whether prosecutors would seek prison time.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served as Donald Trump’s White House press secretary and has been considered a potential contender to be his running mate, shortly after the verdict called his hush money trial a “politically-motivated sham trial.”

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the leading Democratic candidate for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat, said she first heard the news while looking at a garden on the island with other people around, describing the situation as a “weird experience.” She said felt sad because presidents “should be respectable, serious people that kids can look up to.”

- AP

Prosecutor Alvin Bragg said “the jury has spoken” after Trump was found guilty on all charges at his hush money trial.

“Our job is to follow the facts and the law without fear or favour,” Manhattan District Attorney Bragg told reporters.

“We did our job. (There are) many voices out there, the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury, and the jury has spoken.”

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer who was a key prosecution witness in his trial, hailed the guilty verdict against the former President.

Major Republican donors say they are going to keep pumping cash into supporting Donald Trump’s presidential run, excited by polls showing him in the lead and fired up by his unprecedented criminal conviction, according to interviews with around a dozen donors and fundraisers.

- Reuters

“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” Trump told reporters after leaving the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people. They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here.” 

The White House said it respects the “rule of law” after Donald was convicted in a criminal trial.

“We respect the rule of law, and have no additional comment,” Ian Sams, White House Counsel’s Office spokesperson, said in a statement.

House of Representatives Committee Chairman Jim Jordan says “The verdict is a travesty of justice. The Manhattan kangaroo court shows what happens when our justice system is weaponized by partisan prosecutors in front of a biased judge with an unfair process, designed to keep President Trump off the campaign trail and avoid bringing attention to President Biden’s failing radical policies. Americans see through Democrats’ lawfare tactics and know President Trump will be vindicated on appeal.”

- Reuters

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of social networking site Truth Social, slumped on Thursday. Trump Media’s stock was down about 9% in after-hours trading as news of the verdict emerged.

Donald Trump’s conviction shows that “no one is above the law”, his election rival President Joe Biden’s campaign said.

“In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law,” Biden-Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement.

“But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box.”

- AFP

Donald Trump’s sentencing for falsifying business records will take place on July 11, the judge who presided over the trial said.

Judge Juan Merchan set sentencing for 10:00 am (1400 GMT) on July 11, just days ahead of the Republican convention where Trump is expected to be named the party’s presidential nominee.

- AFP

Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson described Donald Trump’s conviction on all charges in his hush money case as “shameful.”

“Today is a shameful day in American history. Democrats cheered as they convicted the leader of the opposing party on ridiculous charges, predicated on the testimony of a disbarred, convicted felon. This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one,” he said in a statement.

- AFP

The New York judge who presided over Donald Trump’s hush money trial thanked the jury for their service and giving the case the “attention it deserved.”

“You were engaged in a difficult and stressful task,” Judge Juan Merchan said after the jury convicted the former U.S. President of 34 counts of falsifying business records. “You gave this matter the attention it deserved.”

- AFP

Donald Trump became the first former President to be convicted of felony crimes as a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

- AP