The first ex-President to be convicted of criminal offenses / The court declares Donald Trump guilty

2024-05-31 07:15:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The first ex-President to be convicted of criminal offenses / The court declares

Donald Trump

Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a felony on Thursday after a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying documents as part of a scheme to influence the 2016 election by concealing a payment to a actress of pornographic films, who says she had an intimate relationship with the former President.

The jury, which took nearly 10 hours to reach its verdict, found Mr. Trump guilty of the 34 charges against him.

While the decision was read, he stood with a frozen look, while cheers could be heard from outside the courtroom from the people gathered outside, both his opponents and his supporters.

"This was a rigged trial," Mr. Trump said as he left the courtroom. "The real decision will be given on November 5 by the people. He knows what happened and everyone knows what happened here," he said.

The first ex-President to be convicted of criminal offenses / The court declares

The decision puts the United States on uncharted territory ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election, when Mr. Trump is expected to be the presumptive Republican nominee against Democratic President Joe Biden.

Mr. Trump is expected to appeal the decision and will face a new, unusual reality as he returns to the electoral campaign, but now as a convicted felon.

Judge Juan Merchan announced that he will pronounce the sentence on July 11, just a few days before the Republican National Convention in the state of Wisconsin, where Mr. Trump is expected to be officially announced as the candidate of the Republican Party for president.

Falsifying business records is a felony punishable by up to 4 years in prison, although prosecutors have not said whether they will seek prison terms, and it is unclear whether the judge would impose such a measure as well. if asked. Conviction, or even imprisonment, does not prevent Mr. Trump from continuing the race for the White House.

Prosecutors say Mr Trump falsified records to hide kickbacks to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, so she wouldn't made public her allegations of a sexual relationship with Mr. Trump a decade earlier.

The first ex-President to be convicted of criminal offenses / The court declares

The former president and presumptive Republican presidential candidate has pleaded not guilty, denied having sex with Ms. Daniels, and says the payments to Mr. Cohen were properly recorded in the company's records as legal expenses.

Mr. Trump also faces three other criminal cases, but the case heard in New York could be the first to be closed before the November election, adding even more significance to the decision.

Although the legal and historical complications surrounding the decision are obvious, the political ramifications are unknown, as the decision may reinforce existing opinions about Mr. Trump rather than change them.

For any other candidate, a criminal conviction would mean the end of the presidential race, but Mr. Trump's political career has withstood two congressional attempts to impeach him, allegations of sexual abuse, various investigations, since possible ties with Russia, to those for trying to overturn the outcome of the elections and on a more personal level, his comments, which became public, that he could do whatever he wanted with women since he was famous.

The charges he was found guilty of are, however, less serious than the other charges he faces in three other criminal cases where he is accused of trying to undermine American democracy and illegally possessing top secret documents.

Republicans have not given any signal that they are withdrawing their support for Mr. Trump. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, said in a statement that this is "a shameful day for the history of America". He called the trial a "completely political and not legal process"./ VOA