The twelve members of the jury in the first criminal trial against former President of the United States, Donald Trump, have found the tycoon guilty of 34 charges of alleged falsification of business records in a scheme where he tried to conceal the payment of $130,000 to former porn actress ‘Stormy Daniels’ to buy her silence.
The jury, which has asked to review several parts of the testimony and hear the judge’s instructions again, deliberated for over nine hours over two days to reach this conclusion, as reported by the US network NBC News.
Judge Juan Merchan thanked the jury for their service and set the sentencing hearing for July 11th at 10:00 a.m. “They have given this matter the attention it deserves and I want to thank them for that”, he added.
With this conviction, Trump becomes the first president of the United States to be criminally convicted in a case that the former president has repeatedly denounced as a “witch hunt” instigated against him by the current Biden Administration.
Trump: “The real verdict will be on November 5th by the people”
The tycoon stated right after leaving the courtroom that it was a “rigged” trial and led by a “corrupt” judge. “The real verdict will be on November 5th by the people,” he said, referring to the presidential elections.
Trump also referred to the process as a “shame” and reiterated his belief that the case was instigated by the Biden Administration “to hurt a political opponent” in the upcoming elections. “We are a nation in decline,” he emphasized.
The former US president has been fined several times during the trial for violating the gag order imposed by Merchan due to the tycoon’s comments against witnesses on his social media, especially against his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who made the payment to ‘Daniels.’
The investigation was launched by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, led by Alvin Bragg, following the tycoon’s alleged plan to bury several sex scandals during the 2016 presidential campaign.
According to prosecutors, Trump’s then-lawyer, Cohen, who also served as Vice President of the Trump Organization, arranged the payment to Clifford, providing that sum from his own pocket, and the former president reimbursed him through hidden payments within the company’s records.
The tycoon was indicted for bribery in March 2023. The former president also faces a federal case for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 elections, where the current president, Joe Biden, emerged victorious.
But some esteemed legal experts have criticized the conviction, citing potentially reversible and highly questionable decisions by Judge Merchan and the legality of Bragg’s case. Says one individual with knowledge of the case, “a District Attorney who was elected on a “Get Trump” campaign promise… who had to twist the laws of legality and logic to find something to charge Trump with… tried in a district that voted for Biden by 87%… presided over by a judge who has contributed financially to Democrats – in violation of NY state law for a sitting judge – and who has family links to Biden’s re-election campaign… who continually denied Trump attorneys in-court motions while upholding prosecution motions… and a jury who found Trump guilty on all charges in just 9 hours of deliberation on a complex financial case. Yeah, nothing to see here.”
