Steve Sanchez/Sipa USA via AP Images
People gather outside Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, May 30, 2024, where former President Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 felony charges in his hush-money trial.
The jury verdict against former President Donald Trump for falsifying business records to cover up a tawdry sex scandal ahead of the 2016 election was a truly shocking moment, not just because an ex-president and current candidate was convicted of a felony, but even more so because Trump has skirted accountability for a proportionately shocking number of other apparent crimes and confirmed, outrageous misdeeds.
At this point, or at least as of Wednesday, it seemed reasonable to assume that the only probable outcome would be another total system failure. It was easy to imagine that Trump would once again ignore all existing norms, bend and perhaps break the laws, while exploiting all possible loopholes, and that judicial and elected officials would again lack the courage and political will to hold him accountable.
Yet here we are.
The conviction marks the first time Trump has been held criminally liable for his most serious crimes against the public, which were aimed at manipulating and undermining the government’s fundamental democratic structures.
Despite his protestations about a political witch hunt, Trump was duly indicted and charged for disguising payoffs—which were meant to conceal crimes and politically damaging news stories—as payments for legitimate “legal expenses.” New York law makes it a felony to create false business records with the intention to commit or conceal another crime, like inflating revenue numbers in order to deceive investors and boost a company’s stock price, for example; or creating deceptive invoices and bank records as part of a conspiracy to cover up tax and elections fraud, as in Trump’s case.
He was convicted by a jury of random New Yorkers, including at least one person who gets all their news from X and Truth Social, Trump’s social network. And his lawyers participated in screening those jurors, including removing people who were evidently biased against the former president. Moreover, Judge Juan Merchan bent over backwards to tolerate Trump and his lawyers continually flouting court rules, including openly intimidating witnesses and making endless frivolous arguments, in an apparent attempt to avoid the inevitable accusations of partisan judging in the inevitable appeals.
The verdict was resounding, coming after a relatively quick nine-hour deliberation over two days, after jurors heard more than 80 hours of complicated evidence and despite the fact that they may soon face a credible threat of violence from Trump supporters. Each of the 12 jurors confirmed the historic, unanimous verdict out loud in court: guilty, on 34 of 34 counts.
Trump’s sentencing has been set for July 11. And some polls have shown early indications that his conviction will sway enough voters to give President Joe Biden a narrow lead in this year’s elections. (It’s worth mentioning that there’s no real support for the notion that Trump’s conviction makes him more likely to win.)
Justice too long delayed is justice denied; and here, we’re talking about crimes against the public and democracy itself.
That’s all well and good. The conviction of a former president who successfully undermined the integrity of an election, and won, and later inspired, supported, and refused to condemn an attempted coup, even when it threatened the lives of members of his own party, is certainly a win for democracy and a vindication of our jury system.
Yet there was also an insidious feeling about the moment.
Immediately after the verdict, both candidates struck a tone that seemed oddly aligned. The convicted and twice-impeached presumptive Republican nominee told reporters outside the courtroom that the “real verdict is going to be November 5th, by the people,” referring to Election Day.
And his Democratic opponent had a similar reaction. Today’s verdict “does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality,” the Biden campaign said in a statement. “There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”
A somewhat tepid message, considering his opponent is now an actual, factual criminal, according to a jury of his peers, the laws of New York state, and the rules of our mainstream press—and for a crime of literal election interference.
It’s as if the entire political establishment has thrown their hands up, letting us know that the justice system worked to hold Trump accountable, for once, and if only to a small degree—but it doesn’t really matter, not when the defendant is a multimillionaire and current presidential candidate.
In other words, the current administration, the Republican Party, the Supreme Court, and all the laws of the United States remain inadequate, or unwilling, to prevent an attempted putschist from running for and possibly re-occupying the highest seat of our government—even when that candidate is a racist, homophobe, grifter, and a convicted felon, as Illinois’s Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker put it after the trial. And all this, despite even conservative government veterans recognizing that his announced platform, “Project 2025,” is designed to allow Trump to function as a vengeful dictator if he were elected.
To be clear, those are precisely the sort of circumstances that sometimes cause our diplomatic corps to refuse to recognize and issue crippling sanctions against foreign governments—often in places that Trump has described in racist terms as “shithole countries.”
It’s a simple reality indeed, and a deeply depressing one.
On one hand, a feckless Democratic Party that has wasted chances to hold Trump accountable for his high crimes, and is now struggling mightily to beat perhaps the most seriously flawed candidate in U.S. history—and certainly the only one ever who will enter the presidential race as a convict and felon. On the other, a Republican Party that has become fully supplicant to a wannabe tyrant and actual criminal who openly conducted his private businesses and previous White House administration like an organized-crime syndicate, and is plotting to do even worse if given a second chance.
Biden announced his nomination of Merrick Garland, a known centrist with a concerning record when it comes to “tough on crime” policies and civil liberties, just a day after Trump had practically led the January 6th insurrection—and well after he had apparently attempted to steal the 2020 election right in front of our eyes. Garland has since dithered on one of the most historically important sets of allegations that an attorney general and the Department of Justice has faced.
Since then, the Supreme Court, including three Trump appointees, has engaged in inexplicable stalling tactics that have delayed the most important cases against the former president until after the election, and has made clear its intent to issue an unprincipled ruling granting him extensive immunities against prosecution. Of course, it was also the Court, moving with uncharacteristic speed this time, that took up an “emergency” case and issued an unprecedented ruling ensuring that Trump would not be disqualified as a presidential candidate due to his role in the insurrection.
The Republican Party, meanwhile, has defended Trump and the Court—which is widely considered to be the most partisan and ethically compromised in history—at every turn.
Hardly cause to celebrate. After all, justice too long delayed is justice denied; and here, we’re talking about crimes against the public and democracy itself.
It seems that we, the people, are on our own here, judging by the responses from the leaders of our two major parties. We should hope that we can all confront that reality, and the stakes of this year’s elections, with the seriousness and the clear-eyed courage that those 12 average New Yorkers have demonstrated for us.
