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Joe Battenfeld is a political columnist for the Boston Herald.
An ex-porn star, a lying lawyer and a supermarket tabloid publisher walk into a courtroom.
It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, which I believe it is.
But there’s nothing funny about the punchline — the felony conviction of Donald Trump.
It was always aimed at hobbling the former president’s White House run, and it has.
But the final verdict rests with voters, and that’s where Joe Biden and the Democrats will be on trial.
The jury of New Yorkers in one of the most liberal states in the nation won’t be the final word on Trump’s fate. The former president will most likely get his chance at revenge in five months at the ballot box.
“This is long from over,” a grim Trump said after the jury reached its verdict — guilty on all charges. “The real verdict is going to be November 5.”
Trump never really had much of a chance of winning the hush money trial. The best he could have hoped for is a hung jury.
In the end there was no surprise twist in the case. Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts — the first time a former president of the United States will be facing criminal felony sentencing, which is set for July 11.
“This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound, to hurt, a political opponent,” Trump said. “We’ll fight to the end and we’ll win …This was a rigged decision right from day one.”
The liberal New York judge presiding over the case could now decide to give Trump jail time, though it’s not expected.
Biden is set to launch an effort now to capitalize on the verdict to help his case in the election, referring to Trump as “convicted felon” at every opportunity.
But it’s a risky strategy because it could backfire if voters feel Biden is just confirming that the entire trial was a political sham.
Biden could also use a guilty verdict to back out of the planned presidential debates, arguing that he shouldn’t be on the same stage as a disgraced convicted felon.
