For months, top advisers to Donald Trump expected that he would be convicted by a New York jury on all 34 felony counts. So Trump and his team waged an all-out war against the judicial system before the verdict came in, hoping to blunt the political damage and position him as a martyr.<\/p>\n
They sent hundreds of fundraising appeals attacking the prosecutors and the system, raising millions of dollars on false claims. They lined up allies outside the courthouse almost every day to question the fairness of the proceedings. Trump attacked the judge, the judge\u2019s daughter and, finally, even the jury \u2014 ordinary, anonymous New Yorkers called to perform their basic civic duty.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, that jury convicted Trump, and the foundational democratic principle that no one is above the law withstood the first-ever criminal trial of a former American president. Despite the attacks, the system worked as designed, analysts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuman beings have their weaknesses and our institutions have their weaknesses, but a jury trial is as good as we can do,\u201d Nancy Marder, a Chicago-Kent College of Law professor who studies jury trials, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
But amid the relentless offensive by Trump and his allies on the legal infrastructure holding him accountable, the trial came with a substantial cost, according to those who study democracy, with the ultimate impact likely to be measured in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe judicial system has taken a body blow from Trump\u2019s assaults,\u201d said Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology at Princeton University who studies the rise and fall of constitutional government. Forcing him to sit through the trial, follow orders and listen to evidence against himself meant that \u201chis rage at being controlled by others is going to be directed at trying to bring the whole judicial system down with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, Trump went on a long diatribe after his conviction was announced. \u201cThis was a disgrace,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n
The courts have been the greatest check on Trump\u2019s efforts to consolidate his control over the country\u2019s levers of power, and since late 2020, when he began intensifying his offensive against the judiciary, serious investigated threats against federal judges have more than doubled, from 224 in 2021 to 457 in 2023, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, as first reported by Reuters. \u201cThe attacks against the country\u2019s democratic institutions not only have effects on those willing to serve in those positions, but they also lower the perceived legitimacy of institutions that should stand above the political fray,\u201d Scheppele said.<\/p>\n
But there was something different about Trump\u2019s repeated complaints about this first criminal jury trial that made them even more potent, experts say. Whenever a politician is brought up on charges, \u201cevery single time that leader will scream up and down that this is a politicized process and his political enemies are out to get him,\u201d said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University. \u201cWhat\u2019s notable here,\u201d said Levitsky, co-author of the book \u201cTyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,\u201d \u201cis that the entire Republican Party is marching in lockstep, along with right-wing media, claiming that the legal process has been weaponized, and therefore eroding public trust in a really vital institution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has very effectively convinced Republicans that this was a rigged process,\u201d said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. \u201cHe hasn\u2019t as much tried to tell people he\u2019s innocent, but he\u2019s tried to erode the credibility of the process, and he\u2019s been effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump allies believe there were legitimate issues with the case, which was turned down by federal prosecutors after a long investigation \u2014 and was seemingly revived last year, some seven years after the offense.<\/p>\n
Only about one-third of U.S. adults say Trump did something illegal in the hush money case. Close to half of the same population thinks he did something illegal in the other three criminal cases pending against him, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in early April.<\/p>\n
After weeks of Trump\u2019s attacks, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan imposed a gag order that Trump violated 10 times, including with his pronouncement that \u201cthe jury was picked so fast \u2014 95 percent Democrats. \u2026 It\u2019s a very unfair situation,\u201d before he was held in contempt and surrogates showed up to say what Trump couldn\u2019t say himself without risking jail. Their presence inside and outside the courtroom, dressed in blue suits and red ties like the man they had come to support \u2014 elected representatives from the first branch of government gathering at a proceeding of the third branch designed to hold to account a former leader of the second branch \u2014 was a vivid sign of Trump\u2019s control over his party\u2019s leaders in Congress, and the precariousness of democracy\u2019s ability to check this assault from its right flank.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was striking to have the three branches of government all in one room,\u201d said Robert Lieberman, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University, \u201cbut that portrait was skewed given that this is a group of people that skipped votes and care less about governing than about the sort of atmospherics of their attachment to Donald Trump.\u201d The courtroom scene \u201cis a good metaphor for the risks that we\u2019re facing as a democracy,\u201d added Lieberman, co-author of \u201cFour Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy,\u201d a study of the common factors in democracies in decline.<\/p>\n
The courtroom featured \u201call the shady characters you could want: a porn star, a tabloid editor, a fixer, all a bit disreputable, and beneath the dignity of the office of the president,\u201d said Sophia Rosenfeld, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the book \u201cDemocracy and Truth: A Short History.\u201d Such scandals often damage the reputation of a nation\u2019s leader and can even end their time at the top of government. But this one didn\u2019t even create \u201cblockbuster\u201d ratings. (It was not televised \u2014 a decision that itself limited the public\u2019s exposure to the proceedings \u2014 but most news channels spent considerable time trying to cover it.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expectations for Trump are so outside the norm that it doesn\u2019t register, and even more, I would say it helps almost kind of define him as a person who never has to follow any of the normal rules,\u201d Rosenfeld added. \u201cThat\u2019s a commentary on what today\u2019s American democracy has come to expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump noted this phenomenon at a fundraiser last week when talking to his supporters about the trial. \u201cNow the only thing good about that is my poll numbers will continue to go up,\u201d he said, according to attendees. (Despite Trump\u2019s strong hold on his party faithful, polls indicate that the conviction could marginally hurt him with voters this fall.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been nobody defending the process,\u201d said Conant, the GOP strategist. \u201cAll the public has heard is Trump attacking the process, and nobody has been defending it on his level.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re entitled to an impartial judge and an impartial jury,\u201d said Marder, the Chicago-Kent College of Law professor. \u201cBut you\u2019re not entitled to one that\u2019s sympathetic to you, but that\u2019s what the former president seems to be saying he wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trial began after a string of setbacks in efforts to hold the former president accountable for alleged wrongdoing. Even before his legal team delayed the three other criminal cases against him, most likely until after the election, Trump had escaped consequences from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III\u2019s investigation into attempts to sway the 2016 election, survived congressional impeachments in 2019 and 2021 that also involved election interference, and beat back several states\u2019 push to keep him off the 2024 ballot because he\u2019d engaged in insurrection.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unfortunate that far and away the least important case is the one that\u2019s being tried before the election,\u201d Levitsky, the Harvard professor, said as the trial was underway. \u201cThe problem is that not even the best institutions in the world can function well in the context of extreme polarization, particularly when one party has turned against democratic institutions. And so extreme polarization and extreme radicalization will undermine and destroy even the best of institutions. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even if Trump damaged the judicial system\u2019s reputation through his complaints about the trial, to not prosecute \u201cwhen there\u2019s a strong sense that wrongdoing happened,\u201d Levitsky said, would be more damaging. \u201cThat would hold the judicial system and the political system hostage to say that to prosecute will bring more blowback than benefit. If you give in to that, you have no rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout the trial, Trump did his best to ensure blowback. Early on, he complained privately that his supporters \u2014 so critical to his hold on power \u2014 weren\u2019t showing up sufficiently for him in the courtroom, according to people who spoke to him at the time and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. That weak showing changed when Trump senior campaign adviser Susie Wiles called Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and asked him to attend. He obliged on May 9, and then attacked the judge\u2019s daughter and the lead prosecutor and issued a broad swipe at the \u201cpolitical thugs\u201d he alleged were running the case against Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he is going through is just despicable,\u201d Scott told reporters outside the courtroom, arguing that the trial was \u201cclearly criminal.\u201d Scott missed a vote that day in the Senate.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to show up when people are being attacked like this,\u201d Scott said in an interview. He made the trip in part as a message to his constituents that \u201cyou should be scared to hell of your federal government if something doesn\u2019t change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott repeated the false allegation that a top Biden Justice Department official had been instructed to take on the case. Such a prosecution \u201cwouldn\u2019t happen to anyone but Biden\u2019s political opponent. It\u2019s just pure politics,\u201d added Scott, who is running to be the Republican leader of the Senate. He said he believed that all the evidence was hogwash, and he was glad to see others follow him.<\/p>\n
After Scott addressed the cameras, other elected Republicans wanted to follow suit \u2014 and they started calling Trump aides to arrange their trips. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who is among the contenders to be Trump\u2019s running mate, showed up and later posted on social media about the \u201cdingy court house with people like Alvin Bragg,\u201d referring to the Manhattan district attorney who brought the case. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) attended the same day and attacked the jurors for being \u201csupposedly American.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuberville later appeared on Newsmax and said he had gone to help Trump \u201covercome this gag order.\u201d House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) traveled to the trial as well. The House Freedom Caucus officially organized a trip to the courthouse.<\/p>\n
There were implicit threats of violence. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) posted on social media a photo of himself outside the courtroom, directly behind Trump. \u201cStanding back, and standing by, Mr. President,\u201d Gaetz wrote, a caption that echoed comments Trump made shortly before the 2020 election to the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.<\/p>\n
At a Texas fundraiser last week, Trump told attendees: \u201cEven if you have a landslide case, you could have the greatest case ever, and if you\u2019ve got an Obama judge, it doesn\u2019t matter what you had. \u2026 They are so dishonest. It\u2019s so bad. The judiciary has got a problem.\u201d (Both the hush money trial and the Georgia case feature state judges \u2014 New York\u2019s appointed and Georgia\u2019s elected \u2014 and the two federal cases involve a Trump-appointed judge and a Barack Obama-appointed judge.)<\/p>\n
Hours before the New York jury began its deliberations, Trump posted on social media: \u201cKANGAROO COURT!\u201d<\/p>\n
This followed a long riff at another fundraiser last week against the judicial system. \u201cThese are dirty players, these are bad players,\u201d he said, according to attendees. \u201cAnd then they call me a threat to democracy. [Biden\u2019s] a threat to democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For months, top advisers to Donald Trump expected that he would be convicted by a New York jury on all 34 felony counts. So Trump and his team waged an all-out war against the judicial system before the verdict came in, hoping to blunt the political damage and position him as a martyr. They sent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}