Photo: Justin Lane-Pool/Getty Images
Donald Trump is running for president to stay out of prison. But what happens if he has to run for president to try to stay out of prison — while he is already in prison?
What if he is running from Rikers?
On Thursday, that possibility became very real, very fast, after Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts in a case in New York state court. The jury only deliberated for a day before issuing a sweeping verdict convicting him of charges related to paying hush money to a porn actress.
Trump is now a convicted felon in a very complicated legal situation, brought on by his utter disregard for the rule of law.
Over the past year, he has been facing criminal charges in four separate cases, but his defense has had very little to do with proving his innocence in any of them. The facts in all of the cases go against him, and he and his lawyers know it. Instead, his legal strategy has been to delay the cases until he can win the presidential election, and then quickly abuse his presidential powers in order to kill the two federal cases against him.
The state cases, however, pose a greater threat to him, as he wouldn’t have any ability to pardon himself, should he win.
In state court in Georgia, where Trump is accused of election interference, he is relying on a friendly, Republican-dominated state legal and political system, where efforts are already underway to discredit the local prosecutor. If that doesn’t work, Georgia’s Republican-dominated pardon board (its members are appointed by the Republican governor) will probably find some legal loophole to help Trump wriggle out of any punishment, especially if he is elected president.
Then there is New York.
Trump was unable to bully the state’s legal system into delaying his case there, and the judge showed little patience for the antics Trump has employed with impunity in other legal venues. All of that helped guarantee that the New York trial would take place before the election, even as his other cases were delayed and faded from political view.
When the state charges were first brought against Trump in New York, pundits with little understanding of the legal system immediately branded the case to be weak, overdrawn, and too complicated. But the basic facts of the case are actually straightforward, revealing a criminal conspiracy that was designed to help Trump win the White House in 2016.
It wasn’t too weak, too overdrawn, or too complicated for the jury.
Think back to Friday, October 7, 2016. In the closing weeks of the presidential election between Trump and Hillary Clinton, a Washington Post story was posted online that night reporting on a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump talked openly about how he frequently groped women, adding that, “When you’re a star, they let you do it.”
Almost immediately, shocked Republican leaders began to call on Trump to drop out of the presidential race. It was the biggest crisis of the Trump campaign.
Trump’s campaign barely survived.
The potential consequences for Trump if additional scandals had surfaced following the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape are explored. Specifically, the scenario of a scandal involving Trump’s affair with a porn actress while married immediately after the tape’s release is considered. The connection between the “Access Hollywood” tape controversy and the subsequent hush money scheme involving Stormy Daniels is highlighted in the New York trial. The prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, emphasizes how the revelation of Trump’s affair with Daniels could have further damaged his campaign during the political turmoil surrounding the tape. To prevent another scandal from derailing his presidential bid, Trump orchestrated a plan to secretly pay off Daniels and conceal the story. The cover-up included fraudulent manipulation of records related to the payments made to his lawyer, Michael Cohen. The New York case also delves into the involvement of the National Enquirer in suppressing damaging stories about Trump through the practice of “catch and kill.” The sentencing for the case is scheduled for July 11, shortly before the Republican National Convention. The article is updated with a quote from prosecutor Joshua Steinglass.
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