Newsman: Former President Donald Trump has been found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. This is the first time a former or sitting U.S. president has been convicted of criminal charges. Donald Trump is also the presumptive Republican’s 2024 presidential nominee for the White House. Trump’s legal team signaled it would appeal the conviction.
New York Judge Juan Merchan set sentencing for July 11 — just four days before the start of the Republican National Convention. After Trump’s conviction on Thursday, the Secret Service said in a new statement that “today’s outcome has no bearing on the manner in which the United States Secret Service carries out its protective mission. Our security measures will proceed unchanged.”
The former president spoke to reporters outside the courtroom, calling the trial a “rigged, disgraceful trial” and saying that the “real verdict” will be rendered on Election Day.
The decision came after about a day and a half of deliberations on Thursday, as 12 New York jurors said they unanimously agreed that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to influence the 2016 contest.
The verdict came more than a year after a grand jury indicted Trump on March 30, 2023, marking the first time a former or sitting president faced criminal charges.
Each of the 34 felony charges carries up to a $5,000 and a maximum sentence of four years in prison, but as a first-time, white-collar offender, no prison time is necessary, and he could receive probation instead. Trump’s imprisonment is up to the judge at sentencing.
Former President Donald Trump could seek to stay the execution of any sentence pending appeal, meaning that he wouldn’t have to start serving the sentence until an appeals court makes a decision. The move could delay any jail time until the election.
The jury heard from 22 witnesses during about four weeks of testimony in Manhattan’s criminal court. Jurors also weighed other evidence — mostly documents like phone records, invoices and checks to Michael Cohen, Trump’s once loyal “fixer,” who paid Daniels to keep her story of an alleged affair with the former president quiet.
The facts of the payments and invoices labeled as legal services were not in dispute. What prosecutors needed to prove was that Trump falsified the records in order to further another crime — in this case, violating the New York election law that makes it a crime for “any two or more persons [to] conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.” The jurors were able to choose whether those unlawful means were violating the Federal Election Campaign Act, falsifying tax returns or falsifying other business records.
Trump’s defense focused intently on the credibility of Cohen and argued that influencing an election is not illegal.
Sentencing may also be complicated
Trump’s sentencing may also be complicated by the lifetime Secret Service protection that he’s afforded as a former president. The issue came up during the trial, when the judge held Trump in contempt for violating a gag order. Though Trump faced multiple fines, the judge expressed that jailing Trump was “the last thing I want to do” because it would have disrupted the trial and presented challenges for the Secret Service agents tasked with protecting the former president.
Trump’s imprisonment would likely need to include a rotation of Secret Service officers, and he would need to be isolated from other inmates. The former president’s food and personal items would likely need to be screened for his protection, among other logistical considerations.
In the event that Trump is sentenced to jail time, the location would depend on the duration of his sentence.
If Trump faces more than one year in jail, New York law requires that his sentence be served in a New York penal facility. But if his sentence is shorter than a year, it would be served in a New York City correctional facility, such as Rikers Island.
