Dear patient readers,
Normally, such a big story would merit a proper post. However, this and other Trump cases have been Lambert’s beat and he is not on duty for an original post today. I am not well positioned to step into his shoes since the press coverage has been so awful over the course of the trial that I have often gone into MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) when encountering it. Lambert said that he would have had to spend twice as much time as he has to have a better grasp of what happened in the courtroom, and also put on a moon suit instead of his usual waders.
Obviously the Trump side will appeal. They need Constitutional theories since it seems vanishingly unlikely any New York court will reverse, no matter how sound the argument. I assume they will be looking hard at the Sixth Amendment for a basis:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence
Lambert and other commentators pointed out that the original indictment did not specify what crime the prosecution was relying on to turn the misdemeanor records offense into a felony. Can that be depicted as a failure to inform Trump of the accusation with sufficient specificity to enable him to prepare a proper defense?
Lambert did point to an additional issue, although I have no idea whether it can be ginned up into a basis for appeal. In yesterday’s Water Cooler, he had gone through the judge’s instructions in detail, including the jury’s verdict sheet:
On “The Charged Crimes,” p 27:
“Verdict Sheet,” p. 53:
[1] These are the counts in Bragg’s indictment; each of the 34 counts is a separate business records offense.
[2] Notice the checkboxes that Merchan does not include:
Surely the voting public has an interest in knowing which object offense caused Trump’s misdemeanors (if any) to be converted into felonies. An absurdly minor tax violation? The much bruited and salacious catch-and-kill scheme? A campaign finance violation? Merchan, apparently, has no care for the voters. I would speculate that — with the possible assistance of the flex-net working the lawfare on this project — having maximized the paths to conviction with capacious definitions of unanimity, Merchan would prefer not to “show his work,” and reveal how those definitions worked out in reality. Whether this is grounds for appeal I don’t know, but I find it appalling. “Our law”! “Our democracy”!
This verdict sheet obscures what the jury’s findings of facts were on which object offense(s) led the misdemeanor business records offense to be upped to a felony. Is that an arguable due process violation?
I trust readers will opine on what this conviction means for the campaign. You can be sure both parties will be flogging it. Trump has apparently started a new round of fundraising based on it. If the Biden campaign makes his case significantly about Trump having been found guilty, does that give him a boost, or is it simply a variant of “Orange man bad and I’m not him”?
Some of the reactions. Pointedly middle of the road USA Today had a headline over the fold that Truth Social shared tanked after the verdict. From its main story on the implications, How will Donald Trump’s guilty verdict hit his reelection bid? Is his political fallout here?:
Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 White House campaign now enters unknown territory: Voter reaction to the first major party nominee to be convicted of crimes….
While the challenge is unprecedented, Trump’s approach is very familiar: Attack the legal system.
“This was a rigged decision, right from day one,” Trump told reporters at the courthouse on Thursday less than an hour after being found guilty and echoing past comments the Republican has made designed to brace voters for the possibility of a guilty verdict…
One thing Trump likely won’t have to worry about anytime soon: Prison. He plans to appeal the verdict, and that process could drag out for years.
NBC has a much splashier landing page as far the verdict is concerned than USA Today:
Contrast with ABC, which almost seems to be treating the decision as oldish news:
At CBS, clearly the big story but no big caps, banner headline across all columns treatment:
From Edward Luce, Larry Summers’ former speechwriter, in Trump’s guilty verdict puts America’s political system on trial in the Financial Times:
The Republican party’s nominee now joins his former campaign manager, senior political adviser, chief White House strategist, and national security adviser as a convicted criminal. The jury’s speed and unanimity leave little doubt about the watertightness of the verdict….
Within minutes of the verdict, senior Republicans rushed to condemn the trial as a politically motivated sham and a travesty of justice. Democrats were commensurately jubilant that justice had been served and that no man is above the law. These polarised reactions were both unsurprising and ominous. They seal this presidential election’s fate as a contest over the rule of law….
The big question is whether the verdict will sway the relatively small number of US voters who neither hate nor love him. Polls suggest that a large share of swing voters would view Trump differently if he were a convicted felon. But what people tell pollsters in the abstract has little bearing on how they will respond to the onslaught of contradictory propaganda they will now face.
Yet it is hard to imagine there could be an upside to Trump’s conviction. Even after his chief rival for the nomination, Nikki Haley, had dropped out of the race earlier this year roughly a fifth of Republican voters still voted “uncommitted” in the ensuing primaries. Were even a small share of those either not to vote, or go for Biden, it could tip the outcome in a close election. Democrats should nevertheless be wary of pocketing a legal verdict as a political win.
A much longer discussion at CNN, Trump conviction heralds a somber and volatile moment in American history, similarly focuses on the “rule of law” issue and related threat to “our democracy”. The initial remarks by Biden spokescritters suggest that the campaign will double down on those themes. They no doubt hope that this messaging will work better than it has now that convictions are in hand. We’ll see soon from polling data what the impact is.
The CNN article interestingly points out that this prosecution was risky:
CNN presidential historian Timothy Naftali said Thursday that Trump’s call to arms for a campaign against the legal system will mean that every Republican will be forced to put it at the center of their 2024 campaigns. “That is going to create, in my view, a torrent of poison that will be likely worse than we saw in the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign that preceded January 6. And that is going to further unsettle an already sensitive country,” Naftali said. “I worry about it because the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign created widespread doubt about the honesty of our electoral system and led many people to believe that fraud had been committed in 2020.”
A question that long hovered over this trial is whether the crime — falsifying financial records to hide a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to mislead voters in 2016 — was sufficiently serious for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to risk the extraordinary political consequences of indicting an ex-president. Prosecutors’ use of Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen as their star witness, despite his own conviction on tax charges and for lying to Congress, was deeply controversial. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Thursday that the timing of the trial — in the middle of an election campaign — was unfair to the ex-president.
But the charges were not just cooked up by prosecutors as Trump claimed. They were brought by a grand jury. The ex-president was offered the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and he was judged by a jury of his peers. Even now, the Constitution he claims has been hijacked will protect him with a full array of appeals, as in all of his other criminal cases.
But once a jury has delivered a verdict, justice is considered served. So the immediate Republican attacks on the judge, the court and the verdict represent an extraordinary effort by one of the country’s two major political parties to turn against the integrity of the legal system.
Fox interestingly looks to be first to run a story based on talking to voters. One can assume big-time sample bias, so again we’ll need polls and more focus groups to get a reading (paging Frank Luntz)
And to round things out, some takes from the Twitterverse. Weirdly tweets on this conviction are not prominent in my feeds (“following” and “for you”). Is Musk suppressing the story? From a search, mainly triumphal reactions:
It only takes ONE juror to hang a jury. Juror #2 answered that Trump’s Truth Social was their only source of news and not even THAT person voted Not Guilty on even ONE charge.
Please save your rigged/sham/kangaroo takes for your echo-chamber friends & donors. pic.twitter.com/EWvjqeLE8I
— Ryan Silvey (@RyanSilvey) May 30, 2024
But there are some others:
I’m voting for Trump.
I don’t even like him.
I’m just tired of the left. Tired of DEI & gun laws & tax hikes & climate nonsense & billions to foreigners.
I’m not voting for the man. I’m voting for the pissed off bull-in-a-china-shop who wants to burn DC to the ground.
— Ron Rule (@ronrule) May 30, 2024
I’m voting for Trump.
I don’t even like him.
I’m just tired of the left. Tired of DEI & gun laws & tax hikes & climate nonsense & billions to foreigners.
I’m not voting for the man. I’m voting for the pissed off bull-in-a-china-shop who wants to burn DC to the ground.
— Ron Rule (@ronrule) May 30, 2024
HOLY SHIT! 🚨
This is what they are distracting you from with the Trump verdict!
Joe Biden gave PERMISSION to Ukraine to use U.S. weapons INSIDE of Russia!
This is WWIII level bullshit right here! pic.twitter.com/7PnuKQTcwU
— Steve 🇺🇸 (@SteveLovesAmmo) May 30, 2024
