- The former U.S. President has been found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business documents to cover up a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels
Donald Trump has described a trial where he was found guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels as “rigged”.
After deliberations over two days, a New York jury announced on Thursday local time it had found Trump guilty on all 34 counts he faced. All 12 jurors had to agree for the verdict to stand.
It makes him the first former US president to be convicted of a crime.
The 77-year-old pleaded not guilty and denied the 2006 affair with Daniels.
Speaking outside court after the verdict, Trump said he was a “very innocent man”.
“This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” he said, without offering any evidence to back up these claims.
“The real verdict is going to be 5 November, by the people. They know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here.”
Trump said he was “fighting for our country” and “fighting for our constitution”.
“We’ll keep fighting. We’ll fight ’til the end, and we’ll win because our country’s gone to hell,” he said.
“This is long from over.”
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg said jurors had made their decision “without fear or favour”.
“The 12 everyday jurors vowed to make a decision, based on the evidence and the law and the evidence and the law alone,” he said.
“Their deliberations led them to a unanimous conclusion, beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant, Donald J. Trump, is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, to conceal a scheme to corrupt the 2016 election.
“While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors, by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favour.”
‘He lied’, ‘salacious’, a ‘witch hunt’: Key quotes from Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial
Bragg said the prosecution team had done its job.
“That is exactly what we did here and what I feel is gratitude to work alongside phenomenal public servants who do that each and every day in matters that you all write about that make the press and in lots of matters that you don’t,” he said.
“I did my job, we did our job. Many voices out there, the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury and the jury has spoken.”
He did not say whether prosecutors would pursue a prison sentence for Trump.
‘No one is above the law’
US President Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris’ election campaign released a statement following the guilty verdict, saying “no one is above the law”.
“Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain,” it said.
“But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box.”
It said the threat Trump poses to US democracy has “never been greater”.
“He is running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution, pledging to be a dictator ‘on day one’ and calling for our Constitution to be ‘terminated’ so he can regain and keep power.
“A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans’ freedoms and fomenting political violence.”
What did the trial hear?
The jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business documents after sitting through a five-week trial that featured explicit testimony from porn star Stormy Daniels about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006 while he was married to his current wife Melania.
Trump’s then-fixer Michael Cohen testified that
in the final weeks of the 2016 election, when he faced multiple accusations of sexual misbehaviour.
Donald Trump denies having had an alleged sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels in 2006. Source: AAP / Seth Wenig/AP
Cohen testified he handled the payment, and that Trump approved a plan to reimburse him through monthly payments disguised as legal work.
Trump’s lawyers criticized Cohen’s credibility, highlighting his criminal record and imprisonment and his history of lying.
Falsifying business documents is normally a misdemeanour in New York, but prosecutors in Bragg’s office elevated it to a felony on the grounds that Trump was concealing an illegal campaign contribution.
Trump’s sentencing is set for 11 July.
He faces a maximum sentence of four years in prison, though others convicted of that crime often receive shorter sentences, fines or probation. Incarceration would not prevent him from campaigning, or taking office if he were to win.
@SBS