Dana Milbank Reports from the scene said that after hearing the “guilty” verdict on all 34 felony counts, Trump, who usually has something to say, was at a loss. In a 98-second statement with his “eyes downcast,” he barely made five claims that the verdict was fraudulent and said little else.
Perhaps it is Jim Geraghty As he points out, something important changed with this decision: “Trump’s legendary good fortune and Houdini-like ability to escape the consequences of his actions were over.” What Trump needed was One The man who served as a juror argued for a mistrial who.
(“Has Trump Lost His Teflon Armor?”) Alexi McCammond She is a conservative Jason Wyrick Progressive EJ Dionne To discuss the outcome of the trial.
Jim likens the situation to the Road Runner finally being caught by Wile E. Coyote. (One might resent the idea that justice is prone to running headfirst into cliffs disguised as tunnels.) But the immutable Looney Tunes adage is that the Road Runner always, always gets away. Jim doesn’t think a guilty verdict would hurt Trump in the long run.
Neither does the Trump campaign, apparently. Campaign officials argue that a guilty verdict won’t have much of an impact on a close and likely long-running election. The main takeaway from the jury’s decision, one cynical campaign official said, was that Karen Tumulty“And we’re going to raise $10 million.”
(Alexandra Petri Imagine that fundraising email: “A so-called jury of his peers (absurd! He is a peerless man!) dared to judge Donald J. Trump as if he were an ordinary law-abiding citizen, rather than the God and King of America he was and will be!”
Interestingly, Karen reports that President Biden’s campaign seems to agree that the race is stalled, with initial statements focused more on what’s to come than on the ruling. Karen predicts the next move for a campaign that’s been hampered by full-on court coverage for the past six weeks.
The truth is, Editorial Committee He noted that many of Trump’s supporters have long believed fraud occurred, yet “many other Americans didn’t need a trial to form an equally firm view that Trump is immoral or worse.”
It’s hard to think of a public figure who is more memorable, which is why a new poll finding that a majority of Americans view criminal convictions as less of a shock is, as the commission writes, “the most startling finding of the day,” but also not the least bit surprising.
There are worlds in which Trump’s problems are harder to ignore. Ruth Marcus “If this system had worked as it should, voters would have faced the possibility of electing an individual convicted of a variety of crimes in three separate indictments,” they wrote.
Unfortunately, in our world, we have a laid-back Trump-appointed judge who delayed the Mar-a-Lago documents lawsuit, and a lazy Supreme Court that allowed procedural maneuvers to delay the trial on January 6, 2021. Ruth believes both of these cases are more persuasive than the hush money lawsuit.
But she makes clear in her final legal analysis of the hush money trial that the entire case proceeded beyond reproach: “The jury’s verdict should be substantially, indeed almost decisively, respected.” Her only concern is that the prosecutors’ decision to “squeeze the ugly facts” of the case “within the bounds of the state’s false business records statute” makes the verdict vulnerable to appeal.
Of course, another way for Trump to overturn the ruling would be to be elected president himself. Jen Rubin “Trump will then argue that the will of the voters and his right to seize power trumps state decisions, and his compliant Supreme Court majority would likely agree,” he warned.
After all, no conviction will keep Trump out of the White House. Eugene Robinson I had written separate columns in advance for each of the three possible jury verdicts (guilty, not guilty, mistrial), but the conclusions for each were the same.
“The justice system was never going to get us out of this mess,” he wrote. “We must do it at the polls in November.”
Chaser: Are you feeling a bit sick? Let’s analyze a new poll and find out… Ramesh Ponnuru The voters who decide the outcome of elections are the least engaged people, he writes, and the gulf between the informed and the disengaged is large and widening.
Bonus Chaser: For more information about what we’re thinking in the aftermath of the trial, listen to Ruth, Dana and Karen on the show. “Improvisation” The podcast was recorded shortly after the verdict.
This is a palate cleanser: Even though I had a desire to eat Sworn Cicadas are only supposed to come out about once every 17 years, so it’s amazing to think that these poor creatures are coming back again.
If there’s anything cute about them, it’s Edith PritchettEnjoy her cartoon that shows how we’re not so different from bugs.
- The Republican battle to hide the cost of the next tax cuts has already begun. Catherine Rampell I will report.
- Mexico has two women running for president Leon Krause It is hoped that this first-in-history election will lead the country towards more constructive politics.
- George Will They write that menthol cigarettes are a health threat and an election-year issue for President Biden.
It’s goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s… “goodbye.”
I once thought it was gone, but now it’s back
With ever-greater offspring
Plus! A Fri-ku! from reader Peter F.:
Have a newsworthy haiku of your own? Please send by e-mailIf you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to contact me. My editor, Amanda Katz, will be in charge next week. In the meantime, have a great weekend!
