On Thursday, a 12-member jury in New York found former President Donald Trump guilty on all 34 charges of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had sex with the married Trump a decade earlier.
Trump is now the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes. Three other criminal cases are pending in other states.
This is a sad time for America, made worse by the gaping disparity in reactions to the verdict, reactions colored more by political affiliation than support for the rule of law, which is centered on the concept that no one, despite their position, is above the law.
It is no surprise that Trump, who blasted the district attorney who brought the charges and the judge who oversaw the court proceedings during the trial, continued to dismiss the case as political retribution.
However, it is disheartening to see so many Republicans who profess to be champions of law and order so readily come to the defense of Trump, who also faces numerous felony charges for trying to undo the 2020 presidential election (which he argued was stolen from him) and for retaining and refusing to turn over classified documents. He was impeached twice, told more than 30,000 lies while in office, made grossly offensive comments about women, and has made it clear that he would use a second term in the White House to consolidate his power and to go after his perceived enemies.
Even if it were true that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg charged Trump for political reasons (which we don’t think he did), it is a big stretch to suggest that all 12 jury members, who were picked with the input of lawyers for both Trump and the prosecution, are somehow out to get Trump and doom his chances of being re-elected president.
Yet, that is the message being spread by Trump and many Republicans, including in Maine.
State Rep. Austin Theriault, who is seeking to challenge U.S. Rep Jared Golden for the 2nd Congressional District seat, called the trial a “sham” and said “our justice system looks like a banana republic under Joe Biden.”
“The irreparable damage done to the integrity of our judicial system is deeply troubling,” Mike Soboleski, also a state representative, who is running in the same Republican 2nd District primary, said in a statement.
“It is fundamental to our American system of justice that the government prosecutes cases because of alleged criminal conduct regardless of who the defendant happens to be. In this case the opposite has happened,” Sen. Susan Collins said in a statement. “The district attorney, who campaigned on a promise to prosecute Donald Trump, brought these charges precisely because of who the defendant was rather than because of any specified criminal conduct. The political underpinnings of this case further blur the lines between the judicial system and the electoral system, and this verdict likely will be the subject of a protracted appeals process.”
Collins, who has often been critical of Trump, is right about the appeals process, which is the right of anyone convicted of crimes. Likewise, Trump was, as his supporters had long called for, entitled to a trial and judgment from a jury, even though Trump has shown disdain for and undermined the judicial process for his own gain.
The judgment from that jury has now gone against Trump and the response from his supporters and many Republicans is that the judicial process is too political. They, not the jury, are the ones making it so political.
As the Associated Press wrote: “The first criminal trial of a former American president always presented a unique test of the court system, not only because of Trump’s prominence but also because of his relentless verbal attacks on the foundation of the case and its participants. But the verdict from the 12-person jury marked a repudiation of Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in the proceedings or to potentially impress the panel with a show of GOP support.”
As others have also written, a criminal conviction would likely doom the political aspirations of many candidates. Yet, Trump, for whatever reason, has a baffling hold on much of the Republican Party, with too few GOP members willing to call out the former president’s many troubling, and in some cases illegal, actions.
Donald Trump and his supporters seem to want law and order for everyone except him. That is wholly incompatible with the concept of equal treatment under the law. If someone has committed a crime, they should face consequences, even if they are running for president. Trump has been tried and found guilty by a jury of his peers in New York. He will have an opportunity to appeal, just as he has the opportunity to mount a defense in the several ongoing cases against him. Despite the outlandish claims from him and his supporters, this is not the hallmark of a banana republic. They might not like it, but this is what accountability looks like in our system of justice.
