Donald Trump has made history.
But it may be the sort of history that not even he wishes he had not made.
Late on Thursday afternoon, a jury of Trump’s peers found the twice-impeached, ex-Commander-in-Chief guilty on all 34 counts related to the very recent trial in which Trump was accused of falsifying business records back in 2016.
He is the first former United States President to ever be convicted of a felony.
Following six weeks of witness testimony and closing arguments inside of a Manhattan courtroom, the jury deliberated for two days before reaching its verdict.
Trump will be sentenced on July 11.
It is conceivable he spends up to four years in jail, although most experts find it unlikely that the judge will actually place Trump behind bars.
It’s also VERY safe to assume this verdict will be appealed.
Trump was on trial for allegedly — actually, we need not use that word anymore — using campaign funds during his run to become President eight years ago in illegal fashion.
He most definitely did use these funds to pay back attorney Michael Cohen at the time for a deal in which Cohen paid the National Enquirer $130,000 to bury a story about Trump having had an affair with a porn star named Stormy Daniels.
This sort of payment is against the law because the aforementioned deal was struck explicitly with the 2016 Presidential Election in mind.
The money was used to influence American voters by ensuring they did not have access to all the information about what one of candidates.
After being found guilty on all 34 charges pertaining to the crime, Trump whined outside of the courthouse as follows:
“This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who is corrupt. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict will be Nov. 5 by the people…
“Our country’s gone to hell. We’re a nation in decline — serious decline.”
Trump also proclaimed himself to be a “very innocent man,” which is empirically false.
Shortly after the verdict was made public, meanwhile, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement that said:
The threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater. He is running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution, pleading to be a dictator on day one and calling for our Constitution to be “terminated” so he can regain and keep power.
A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans’ freedoms and fomenting political violence — and the American people will reject it this November.
This, of course, remains to be seen.
Because Donald Trump is not just the first former President to be convicted of a felony, he’s also the first Presidential nominee of a major political party to have been convicted of a felony.
He could still be elected President.
Trump, meanwhile, has been accused of 54 other felonies as well.
His remaining three criminal cases continue to face court delays and are unlikely to go to trial before the November election.
“In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law,” said a spokesman for President Biden a few moments ago.
“Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain.
“But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box.”
