On Thursday evening, in the courtroom of New York, Donald Trump looked depressed when the jury pronounced him guilty of 34 counts of felony falsification of business records, sitting slack as he became the first former president ever to be convicted of a crime. .
Then he goes up to the camera in the hallway to claim, falsely, that it was all a setup.
“Our country is being hijacked right now,” Trump said. “This is being done by the Biden administration in order to injure or injure 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 hasn’t stopped Trump and his allies from trying to use the weapon — using it in a long-running effort to undermine confidence in the courts, the justice system, and possibly the 2024 election itself.
Trump was convicted of falsifying business records as part of a plan to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to explode when he became president in 2016. Prosecutors said it was an illegal attempt to influence the election, and Trump has tried to overturn it. accusations on his head.
For months, he was deliberate, repetitive and disciplined in the words he used to talk about the court. He called it the “Biden trial.” He called it “electioneering,” as he did Thursday on a social media website. He called it a “witch hunt”.
On Thursday, his allies were quick to join the chorus. Kari Lake, a candidate for the Arizona Senate, described the verdict as “the worst example of election interference and a mockery of the rule of law in the 246-year history of our Republic.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the hearing a “purely political exercise, not a legitimate one,” and accused the Biden administration of participating in the “weaponization of our justice system.”
Trump’s statement immediately after the verdict indicated that he would use the app to try to destroy faith in the system that punished him. That may worry Republicans and Democrats concerned about the future of American democracy, which depends on public trust.
“It’s a belief by an American jury that listens to the evidence and makes a decision,” said Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow in the Program on Democracy, Conflict, and Governance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “When you destroy the courts. the election process is destroyed, there is no peaceful way to resolve differences.”
For Trump and his campaign, the party line is grievance, anger and calls for revenge. And one Republican who strayed from it immediately came under fire from one of Trump’s closest aides.
“Regardless of the outcome, I urge all Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process,” former Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican running for the Senate, posted on X shortly before the verdict was announced.
“You just ended your campaign,” Chris LaCivita, Trump’s senior adviser, fired back at Hogan in his own post.
Even a vanilla statement about trusting the verdict and the process seems like too much for the Trump team.
REPORTER’S NOTE BOOK
What is it like inside the courtroom
My colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich have been in Courtroom 1530 for the past eight weeks. It was an empty space with bright lights. And he was there when Trump found out he had been convicted.
I asked Maggie what that moment was like. “Intense,” she said. “It’s like time stopped.”
Jonah describes the scene this way.
It happened very quickly.
The jury entered the courtroom and entered the jury box. The jurors confirmed that they had reached a verdict. And then the foreman, who had been sitting silently all the trial until today, stood up, took the microphone and was asked what he and 11 other New Yorkers had determined about the first criminal charges against Donald J. Trump.
“Guilty,” said the foreman. The former president closed his eyes, then slowly shook his head.
Read more here.
What to read about Trump’s conviction
Before Trump left the court, Judge Juan Merchan set the date for his sentencing: July 11, four days before the start of the Republican National Convention, where he will receive the party’s nomination for president.
It’s an incredible twist in an incredible campaign. Here’s what you need to know so far.