The verdict is now available. Former President Trump was found guilty Thursday of all 34 felony counts against him in the New York hush money case in connection with falsifying records surrounding a payment made to silence porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before of the 2016 elections.
Now the real test begins.
Will Americans who disagree with the outcome respect the rule of law and, more importantly, the safety of the jurors who decided the case? Or, as a country, are we so conditioned by partisan lines that we vehemently reject all outcomes that do not serve our political interests?
Trump wasted no time delegitimizing the verdict, the trial and the rule of law as he addressed the media outside the courtroom. He said the trial was “rigged,” that the judge was “corrupt,” that “the country went to hell,” and that “the verdict was “shameful.” He also took the opportunity to campaign, incorrectly claiming that “this was done by the Biden administration to hurt or hurt an opponent, a political opponent.”
The presumptive Republican presidential candidate's response to defeat was predictable. We had seen him use the same language to discredit the 2020 election results. The rant outside the courtroom was clearly taken from the same playbook. But like poll numbers and election results, the jury's verdict was not so easy to predict.
The news that he was found guilty of all serious crimes was surprising, even at a time when nothing should surprise us. After all, we are living through one of the most vulgar chapters in American history, when the cover-up of an alleged tryst between a former porn star and a former reality TV host could have influenced the outcome of a historic election. If only our decade had a brave narrative in the history books to counter all the sleaze, like when the Continental Army took over the airports during the Revolutionary War.
The verdicts on all 34 charges had not even been read before the partisan spin began, including a Trump campaign fundraising appeal that called the former president a “political prisoner.”
But it is important to recognize the gravity of the moment. The legal system worked, despite all the outside scrutiny, pressure and organized efforts to overturn the proceedings by those who would prefer to see their man in the Oval Office rather than in a cell. We should be encouraged by the fact that the prosecutors, the judge, and a jury of 12 citizens refused to be intimidated by the defendant, his Republican surrogates, and his radical followers.
But now we face a bigger stress test: Will people believe in the legal system or its debunking by Trump and his acolytes?
Fox News immediately went on the defensive, which of course means offensive. “The Biden-Harris campaign is now free to call him a convicted felon,” one reporter said.
Naturally, host Jeanine Pirro went a step further: “Americans believe in justice and, in their guts, they realize that something is very wrong here,” she said. “We have fallen off a cliff in the United States. This verdict is the verdict of someone who was forced to fight a 1000 pound gorilla with both hands tied behind his back. “This is a defendant for whom crimes were created.”
GOP representatives, such as Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), were also quick to denounce the verdict as unfair, or worse.
“Today is a shameful day in American history,” Johnson said in a statement issued minutes after the guilty verdict was announced. “The American people rightly see that this is legal warfare and know that it is…dangerous.”
Pitting people against the legal system is not only false, but also dangerous.
Violent threats and doxxing have been prevalent in all four of the former president's criminal cases. Also common are descriptions by Trump and right-wing media of prosecutors, judges and anyone else who could jeopardize his chances of winning as corrupt or a tool of Democrats. Last summer, Trump supporters released the names and addresses of the Fulton County grand juries that indicted him and 18 of his co-defendants. As recently as this week, false reports about jury instructions proliferated in right-wing media, leading to more threats against Judge Juan Merchán.
“Several conservative news personalities, including some Fox News affiliates, falsely claimed that Judge Juan Merchán, as a Fox News host put it in a viral post on X, 'told the jury they don't need unanimity to convict.' . That is not true,” NBC reported.
Thursday's guilty verdict came after weeks of salacious testimony about an alleged sexual encounter between Trump and Daniels and falsifying records about a $130,000 payment to ensure her silence. Sentencing is set for July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention begins in the swing state of Wisconsin.
Trump attempted to one-up the jury's decision Thursday when he proclaimed outside the courtroom: “The real verdict will be on November 5th by the people.”
When it comes to selecting our next president, that's true.
But we are a nation of laws. And that means that with this jury's ruling, the presumptive Republican candidate has earned a new title.
Convicted criminal.
