In a New York courtroom on Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump looked somber as a jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, expressing relief at becoming the first former president to be convicted of a crime.
He then walked out into the hallway towards the cameras and falsely claimed the whole thing was staged.
“Right now our entire country is being rigged,” Trump said. “This is being done by the Biden administration to hurt and damage their political opponents.”
That is not true. Trump’s trial in New York is a local matter brought by District Attorney Alvin Bragg and has nothing to do with President Biden or his Administration.
But that didn’t stop Trump and his allies from immediately trying to weaponize it, using it in a years-long effort to undermine confidence in the courts, the judicial system and perhaps the 2024 election itself.
Trump was convicted of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to erupt during his 2016 presidential run. Prosecutors said it was an illegal attempt to influence the election, and Trump is seeking to overturn the charges.
For months, he has been thoughtful, repetitive and disciplined in the words he uses to talk about the trial. He calls it the “Biden trial.” He calls it “election interference,” as he did on his social media websites early Thursday. He calls it a “witch hunt.”
His allies were quick to join the chorus on Thursday, with Arizona Senate candidate Kali Lake calling the verdict “the most egregious example of election interference in the 246-year history of our republic and a blatant mockery of the rule of law.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the trial “not a legal exercise, but a purely political exercise” and accused the Biden administration of participating in the “weaponization of the justice system.”
Trump’s comments in the aftermath of the verdict suggested he was trying to use the ruling to undermine faith in the system that convicted him. This will unnerve Republicans and Democrats alike, who worry about the future of American democracy that depends on public trust.
“This is a guilty verdict by an American jury that heard the evidence and reached a verdict,” said Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “If you undermine the courts, just as our elections are already undermined, there’s no way to peacefully resolve differences.”
For Trump and his campaign, the party line is one of frustration, anger and calls for revenge — and any Republican who strays from that line is immediately subject to criticism from one of Trump’s closest allies.
“Regardless of the outcome, I urge all Americans to respect the ruling and the legal process,” former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican running for Senate, posted on X shortly before the verdict was announced.
“You just finished campaigning,” Trump senior adviser Chris LaCivita said in his own post, firing back at Hogan.
Even a mundane statement of trust in the verdict and the judicial process seemed too shocking for the Trump campaign.
Journalist’s Note
Scene in the courtroom
My colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich have spent much of the past eight weeks in Courtroom 1530, a harshly lit, austere space, and they were there when they learned that Trump had been convicted.
I asked Maggie what that moment felt like. “It was intense,” she said. “It was like time stood still.”
Jonah described the scene this way:
It happened very quickly.
The jurors filed into the courtroom, they stepped up to the jury box, they confirmed that they had reached a verdict, and the foreman of the jury, who had been silent throughout the trial to date, rose to his feet, took the microphone, and was asked what his and the 11 other New Yorkers’ judgments were on the original criminal charges brought against Donald J. Trump.
“Guilty,” the foreman said. The former president closed his eyes and shook his head slowly.
Click here for details.
What to read about Trump’s conviction
Before Trump left the court, Judge Juan Marchand set a date for sentencing for July 11, four days before the start of the Republican National Convention, where Trump is scheduled to accept his party’s nomination for president.
This is an extraordinary development in an extraordinary campaign. Here’s what we know so far:
