As the Washington Post reports, the jury in the New York criminal trial against ex-President Donald Trump on charges of falsifying business records to conceal a “hush money” payment to porn star Stormy Daniels is now deliberating the historic case:
The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial began deliberating Wednesday morning in the first criminal case against a former U.S. president — weighing a momentous decision that could brand the presumptive GOP presidential nominee as a felon just five months before Election Day.
“You are the judges of the facts, and you are responsible for deciding whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty,” New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said while giving the jurors their final legal instructions.
The judge emphasized that the verdict is solely theirs to make and that they should not take anything he has said or done as suggestive of a verdict. The entire panel appeared to be paying close attention to the judge, and at least one juror was taking notes…
Now comes the wait for the jury to conclude its deliberations and return a verdict. Trump’s legal team fought hard to delay this trial and then to either dismiss the case or get a mistrial ruling, but none of those attempts succeeded. Through 20 witnesses including National Enquirer publisher David Pecker who described the “catch and kill” arrangement with Trump to prevent the publication of negative stories during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Trump’s former “fixer” Michael Cohen who described the hush money plot in detail, prosecutors have built the case for their criminal charges–while also providing damaging broader context about Trump’s attempts to cover up his multitudinous misdeeds that will leave lingering questions no matter what the verdict is.
And in the worst case, the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States is about to be a convicted felon. Stay tuned with literally the rest of the world.
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Well bless his heart. Who's going to tell him?
Uh oh. He called Trump the :"former" president. What a goddamn RINO!
(a RINO whose version of Christianity will never be confused with the work of Mother Teresa)
I'm pretty certain that if God has a "will" in regard to DJT, there is enough power to carry it out without additional intercession.
On the bright side, Graham the Younger doesn't specify what God's will for Trump actually is.
I gotta say … I'd be happy to learn that God's will was to keep DJT as the "former President."
👆👆👆THIS 👆👆👆
Trump will not be jailed regardless of a conviction in this case because he's had no prior criminal history and that these are the lowest level felony charges in NY. Even if he is sentenced to jail it will be stayed upon appeal which will last long after the November election. The over/under of any possible jail time is one week. And, even a conviction will apparently have little effect on voters.
But, if there's a hung jury it may gin up his supporters to turn out at the polls in greater numbers. (See juror #2, investment banker who follows Truth Social and has been making googly eyes at Trump and JD Vance.)
The reward of a conviction is not worth the price of a hung jury and this case should not have been pursued.
instead they should have sic’d the IRS on his ass.
The way in which he may end up in jailis if: (a) there's a conviction, (b) he's placed on supervised probation, and (c) he fucks up on probation. Recall his dear friend, Leona Helmsley, who did some time in prison, was released early and ordered to start serving the useful public service portion of her sentence, believed that only the "little people" did public service and ordered one of her hotel employees to report in her place, and got busted for doing so and was sent back to prison.
I could easily see his arrogance and contempt spewing out while on probation trigering a revocation proceeding. Besides, the visual of the President of the United States next year having to report to a NY state probation officer will be almost as rewarding as if he is in a state prison.
You are correct that they really should have turned the NY state department of revenue on him instead of going forward with this jerry-rigged theory of criminal culpability. Jurors, most if not all of whom pay their taxes and resent people who do not, would have returned a guilty verdict within an hour of getting the case.
Merchan might opt for a middle ground simply because Trump does not show respect for the case or the court. The judge has already noted that Trump has not respected his orders; even after the gag order violation ruling Trump merely switched to less traceable 3rd party violations. I could see a short (one day or one week) prison sentence to be served immediately, followed by home confinement and/or probation. If the main punishment is probation I don't know that the courts would suspend it pending appeal, either.
Following this morning's liveblog at the Washington Post is like hearing a sportscast about paint drying.