Convicted.
Donald J. Trump was convicted yesterday on 34 counts of falsifying records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments.
Finally. Finally. Finally.
I have so many thoughts about this latest Trump conviction, and there are so many questions about the practicalities of what happens next, that I will attempt to break down the most salient aspects today. I will also continue to cover the appeals process as it coincides with our next National Election.
Donald Trump was convicted on 34 charges of falsifying business records under New York Law § 175.10, which is a “Class E” felony punishable by a fine, probation or up to four years in prison per count. The jury was comprised of 12 people who listened to the facts of this trial for nearly to six weeks, and found him guilty in less than ten hours of deliberation.
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, 2024, less than a week before the Republican Party will meet in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to presumptively nominate him as their candidate for president. This is the first time in the history of the United States that a former president, and current future candidate for president has ever been convicted of a crime, so we have a lot of new road to traverse both politically and legally.
Trump will have 30 days after he’s sentenced in July to file a notice of appeal, and then six months to file a full appeal — which means the full appeals pleading might not even be filed before the presidential election in November.
Trump will file an appeal with the First Judicial Department of New York’s Appellate Division, an intermediate court which is his first stop in the process. Once that fails, he can next go to the New York Court of Appeals, and ask them to to take the case. The final stop is the United States Supreme Court, but neither this Court, nor the Court of Appeals is obligated to actually hear the controversy.
While it is expected that the case will be expedited given its the importance of resolution for the national welfare, the appeals process will continue after the next election and likely through the next year. Todd Blanch, lead attorney for Donald Trump’s defense team has already stated that his client intends to file an appeal at the earliest possible date.
While this conviction could hold the possibility of substantial jail time, it is unlikely that Judge Juan Merchan will sentence Trump to any jail time given several factors which include: his age; his status as a first-time nonviolent offender; and the difficulty to secure him in a facility. This is all speculative at this point, but if you would like to hear further discussion about the idea of incarcerating Donald Trump, I would urge you to listen to this podcast I did with my mom — a former prosecutor and judge — where we discuss this concept in more detail.
There are also some basic questions about what rights Donald Trump will lose as a convicted felon, such as the right to vote and to carry a firearm. Under New York law, as extended to Florida where he currently has his full-time residence, Trump would have to be physically incarcerated to lose the right to vote. Once convicted, he will also lose access to daily security briefings, which have continued since he was charged in Florida with 40 counts stemming from his alleged mishandling of sensitive government records after leaving the White House and efforts to obstruct the Justice Department's investigation.
As for how this jury verdict is going to affect the political process, that really remains to be seen, and we will have to unpack the ramifications as each milestone is passed. If this were 2016, before the Access Hollywood tape was released, I would have said he was through and we could rest easy. But, his supporters have only proven that the worse Donald Trump behaves, the more they love him, so all bets are off in 2024.
What remains quite clear to those of us who finally feel like we have had our long-lost sanity restored to us as a result of Trump's latest criminal verdict, is that there are a lot of federal laws that need to be changed in the United States to ensure that we don’t ever have to go through this again with another candidate that is attempting to be even more deplorable than Trump to outshine him. The only way we can do this is for Democrats to not only retain the White House and a majority in the Senate in 2024, but to win back more seats in the House of Representatives to ensure we can pass protective laws.
There is so much to say about the significance of yesterday, that I feel it best to take each issue as it comes. I would like to thank each and every one of my dear readers out there, who have continued to stay here and keep fighting, even with the heaviness of another disappointing result hanging over us. I will leave you with this video of Hillary Clinton speaking last night at the Vital Voices event in Washington, DC, which has been my favorite assessment of Trump’s guilty verdict so far.
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter and hosts the live SHERO podcast on Callin. She is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
Paid subscriptions and one-time tributes embedded in each article allow me to keep publishing critical and informative work that is sometimes made available to the public — thank you. If you like this piece and want to support independent journalism further, you can forward this article to others, get a paid subscription or gift subscription, or donate once, as much as you like today.
Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty.