Trump has been criminally convicted in the Manhattan hush money case.
Which also means that…America just elected a convicted criminal to be the 47th president. Let’s just think about this for a minute.
There were 2 impeachments that the Democratic House used to expose evidence to the public about Trump’s criminal wrongdoing, but the Republican led Senate did not vote to convict him; there was the January 6th insurrection case; the stolen documents case; the E. Jean Carroll civil sexual assault case that Trump lost; and the Trump Org case that Trump lost and owes a ton of bucks for, and let’s not forget the Georgia case that Fani Willis is trying to keep alive. The voters knew Trump was a criminal, but enough Americans disregarded that or believed Trump when he said these were witch hunts. They voted for him anyways and got him back in office. Think about that for a minute also. What does that say about Americans?
On Friday, January 10th, 2025, Trump became a bona fide convicted criminal. When he takes office, he will be the first American president to have that distinction.
WHAT WENT WRONG IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
Cases against Trump mounted when Biden was president. Trump was exposed in a series of news articles and social media snippets for his illegal, corrupt and criminal acts. I believed that the legal system would mete out justice to Trump the way it has meted out justice to other political leaders who break the law. Plenty of governors, senators and other politicians have been prosecuted and found guilty for breaking the law after they were caught. I thought that in America no one is above the law. I had faith that the Department of Justice would pursue the facts quickly and that there would be a trial and Trump would be found guilty based on the evidence as long as the jury was fair and impartial. I thought he might get a prison sentence. I was wrong about most of that when it came to Trump.
Why was Trump different?
Trump was not the typical politician. He had built up a following from his TV show where he was portrayed as a successful businessman despite being a failed businessman who had squandered his father’s money and needed to declare bankruptcy 6 times. (Politico fact checked). Trump learned from Roy Cohn and the wheeling dealing real estate world how to fight dirty. He used his criminal indictments as both a sword and a shield by politicizing them and calling them “witch hunts”, never admitting guilt and expressing grievance when other politicians would have expressed remorse. He relentlessly pretended he was clean. By the time these indictments were coming down after his first term of office, Trump not only had a cult of Americans who literally worshipped him, believed every lie that he uttered, and were willing to be his outraged online storm troopers, he had an entire political party that had abandoned their faith in democracy and at least pretended to have faith in him, and he also had a Supreme Court with two thoroughly corrupted rightwing justices- Alito and Thomas- who are on the take from rich dudes who pay to play.
This Supreme Court granted Trump expansive criminal immunity, greenlighting his corruption and criminality and making it clear that if he were to return to the presidency he would be able to act like a king instead of being hobbled by laws and rules. The Court also consciously delayed his cases to help him evade consequences. Trump’s bandwagon has, in other words, been exponentially growing. And now Trump has the billionaire’s club on his side: Elon Musk, the fossil fuel guys and the tech bros, hitching their wagons to his so they can get and stay in power. This is a star studded roster of corrupt, extraordinarily powerful, wealthy human beings helping Trump to turn into an autocrat and deconstruct our democracy.
ONLY THE STORMY DANIELS CASE SURVIVED
No wonder the so-called Stormy Daniels case turned out to be the ONLY criminal case that Trump did not totally kill and bury before becoming president for the second time. Remember way back to that trial? A jury of average Americans found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The Manhattan District Attorney persevered against the odds and Trump’s constant barrage of attacks on everyone; the judge, the prosecutors, court personnel, and the rule of law to get to the finish line.
The Department of Justice didn’t do as well. DOJ ran into trouble with Merrick Garland who diddled away precious time that Trump took advantage of. In the end, the DOJ took too long to investigate and indict which gave Trump too much of an opportunity to interfere with the process. The federal criminal justice system is usually built for speed because most defendants want the trial to take place in a hurry. There are speedy trial rules that apply to criminal cases in the federal system to help defendants get a faster resolution. Many defendants wants to clear their names or want to get out of prison if they are incarcerated awaiting trial. They want to resolve the case quickly.
Not Trump. He was running FROM the law because he knew he would be found guilty. He used delay and relentless and vicious social media attacks to undermine the system that was not built for a criminal with a bottomless pit of money to throw at evading justice. He knew that if he could just get elected president he would get the get-out-of-jail-free-card he wanted. His best ploy was to delay, dissemble, and cover up. He kept repeating that he had done nothing wrong. His cult believed him. His growing army of billionaire allies supported him. For them there was no downside to giving Trump support. It was all upside.
TRUMP USED THE LEGAL SYSTEM AGAINST ITSELF
Trump and the right wing understand how to use the legal system against itself and played that hand well. Trump got himself a team of lawyers who effectively used the appellate system to delay and delay and delay some more (launching appeals) when it came to the two federal cases led by Jack Smith: the January 6th Case (Judge Tanya Chutkan- Washington, DC) and the Documents Case (Judge Aileen Cannon- Florida).
When it came to Judge Cannon, it is clear that the fix must have been in. You really have to wonder if she has her own back room deal going with Trump. She definitely helped out her bestie, Donald, with a series of bad judicial rulings, and then she dismissed the entire case using the bogus rationalization that Jack Smith wasn’t a qualified special counsel and should never have been able to pursue the case against Trump in the first place. That was and still is a ridiculous ruling on her part which was untethered to legal reality or precedent. But her timing was perfect for Trump, because by the time she pulled the plug on the stolen documents case, it was too late to resurrect it before the election. Trump won again by cheating, delaying and covering up. He beat the clock. Will we ever know if he sold our precious national secrets to the highest foreign bidder to enrich himself?
Given the back room deals Trump has made, the corruption of so many people who are out for themselves and want to be in Trump’s good graces, and the use of delay and fear as strategies, it is more of a wonder that Trump got convicted of anything at all.
But here we are. Remarkably, Trump IS now a felon. When he returns to the White House on January 20th, there is no way he can pretend away that black mark on his record. Not that it will really matter to his followers and sychophants.
CONVICTION
On Friday, Justice Juan M. Merchan sentenced Donald J. Trump to an unconditional discharge, a rare and lenient sentence in New York state courts that still cements Mr. Trump’s status as a felon before his inauguration.
A conditional discharge would have required him to meet certain conditions, like maintaining employment or paying restitution, but Mr. Trump will not be subject to any requirements going forward.
Mr. Trump, who was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal, had originally faced probation or up to four years in prison, and a New York Times analysis revealed that Justice Merchan had ample ground to consider incarceration. [NYT]
Most sentences depend on the degree to which the defendant expresses personal insight about his wrongdoing and remorse about what he did. Not in Trump’s case. He expressed no insight. He continued, even after his conviction, to say that he had done nothing wrong.
Trump said: “It was done to damage my reputation so I would lose the election.”
“This has been a political witch hunt.”
Concluding his statement, he said: “I was treated very unfairly and I thank you very much.”
It was the prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, who said what Judge Merchan probably should have said.
Trump “engaged in a campaign to undermine the rule of law” during the trial.
“He’s been unrelenting in his attacks against this court, prosecutors and their family,” Mr Steinglass said.
“His dangerous rhetoric and unconstitutional conduct has been a direct attack on the rule of law and he has publicly threatened to retaliate against the prosecutors.”
Mr Steinglass said this behavior was “designed to have a chilling effect and to intimidate”.
Any other defendant would have almost certainly faced a period of incarceration and/or probation if for no other reason than to impress upon him and the public that attacks on the trial proceedings, rule of law and the trial staff would not be tolerated. Too bad Judge Merchan didn’t at least talk about the sentence any OTHER defendant would have gotten who behaved this badly.
TRUMP’S APPEAL TO THE SUPREME COURT WAS VERY WEAK
Trump appealed to the Supremes in a last ditch effort to avoid this conviction. Trump’s appellate attorneys tried to convince the Supreme Court to expand their immunity decision even further. In urging the Court to tank his conviction they made this argument: This case is the first criminal prosecution in our Nation’s history of a former President for actions taken during his Presidency.
No it wasn’t.
That argument had a hole in it wide enough to drive a Mack truck through. The facts of the case all took place BEFORE Trump became president in 2016. Trump was prosecuted for actions he took to try to BECOME president by hiding his affair with Stormy Daniels. The only action he took after he was president was to sign a few of the checks to Michael Cohen that he alleged were payment for legal business activities when they were in fact pay back for Cohen’s assistance in paying off Stormy Daniels’ hush money. He falsified business records to cover up his liaison with Stormy Daniels and he did it so that he could get elected president in 2016. Trump got into office the first time with the help of a cover up. But this is Trump’s MO ALL OF THE TIME. He is always cheating and covering up.
What you see is what you get, y’all.
WHY JUDGE MERCHAN GAVE TRUMP AN UNCONDITIONAL SENTENCE
Judge Merchan signaled in advance to the Supreme Court that he was not going to give Trump a sentence with any teeth.
“While this Court as a matter of law must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and Defendant opportunity to be heard, it seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration, a sentence authorized by the conviction but one the People concede they no longer view as a practicable recommendation. As such, in balancing the aforementioned considerations in conjunction with the underlying concerns of the Presidential immunity doctrine, a sentence of an unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow Defendant to pursue his appellate options.”
As Merchan says, any conditions would be impractical. True. But I also think that Judge Merchan understood how close some of the rightwing justices on the Supreme Court were to throwing this verdict into the wastebin of history. The rightwing members of this Court were holding a figurative sword over Judge Merchan’s head. If Judge Merchan had sentenced Trump to repay court costs or spend time in a food pantry or an hour in the slammer, those guys were ready to kill the verdict and give Trump yet another victory. The decision to let the conviction stand was close: 5 to 4, with Roberts and Barrett joining the so-called three “liberal justices”. I think Judge Merchan knew he had to tread lightly. So he did.
Just like everyone else seems to be doing right now. We could be witnessing the collapse of our democracy as major player after major player shows up at Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump’s ring and buy their way into his good graces: Heads of state, business leaders, congressional leaders… the list is long.
So far, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Perplexity say they’ll donate $1 million each. And it’s not just cash: Google’s Sundar Pichai reportedly visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday and Trump said he had dinner with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Trump won this election in part by being the strongman American voters thought they needed and wanted. Even if he is a bully and a cheater, voters thought “He will bully and cheat on our behalf”. What Trump does with the power and good will he currently has remains to be seen. Will he feel less of a need to bolster his fragile self-esteem by getting even with his detractors? Will he overplay his hand with a whirlwind of executive orders that seek revenge, create pain and hatred, recklessly deconstruct government, divide the country even more, wreck the good economy Biden built but failed to tell Americans about? Will he be a president for all Americans no matter whether they live in a red or blue state? Will he listen to reason or spew conspiracy theories and disinformation?
We are about to see. But I got a clue for you. Behavior is on a continuum. What you see is what you get.