As the 12 New Yorkers began deliberating Wednesday and Donald Trump had to stick around the courthouse with nothing to do but wait, he erupted before news cameras and on social media:
“Mother Teresa could not beat these charges”
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"I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE CHARGES ARE IN THIS RIGGED CASE"
“Very Dangerous Day for America"
By the end of Thursday afternoon, the jury had found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a bid to conceal from the voting public an affair with a former porn actress.. With or without the assistance of Trump, the aftermath of the first trial of an American president will continue to be litigated in the court of public opinion well beyond the November presidential election — one that Trump may very well win.
Some would wrongly conclude, because Trump “has finally been subjected to the rule of law,” that the systems of justice are working with equal protection for all. And that no person, not even a former president of the United States, is “above the law.” Although that remains to be seen, as Trump may still escape from the rule of law with respect to his failed coup d’état on Jan. 6, 2021, and for having stolen classified documents on his way out of the White House a couple of weeks later.
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Regardless of the unanimous verdict, this trial is not over. According to a recent PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, “45 percent of Americans overall say these investigations are unfair and designed to obstruct his 2024 presidential campaign.”
Trump cultists believe that our systems of justice — civil and criminal – have been so corrupted and weaponized by the Biden crime family, radical leftists and global elites that they will still prefer an antidemocratic-authoritarian dictator and convicted felon as their head of state.
Before Trump became president in 2017, and over the course of three decades, he was arguably the greatest litigant of all time. Certainly, Trump was among the most litigious people in U.S. history. Whether he is the plaintiff or the defendant, Trump uses the law as a means of bullying and punishing his adversaries regardless of who they are.
Between 1986 and 2016, Trump was involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits according to James Zirin, author of The Plaintiff in Chief. In about 60 percent of these personal and business clashes, Trump was busy using the law to sue an array of individuals and entities. His defendants included personal assistants, celebrities, mental patients, prisoners, attorneys, businesspeople, family members, unions, governments and the media.
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Trump sued for fraud, for breach of trust, for breach of contract, for violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, for government favoritism, for libel, and for misappropriation — pretty much for all of the illegal things that Trump specializes in.
Trump also sues for all kinds of reasons: for sport, to achieve a sense of control, to make a point, and as a means of destroying or silencing anyone who has crossed him.
As a defendant, Trump has been sued for racial and sex discrimination, sexual harassment, fraud, breaches of trust, money laundering, defamation, stiffing creditors, defrauding students, defaulting on loans and misusing his own charitable foundation to further his political and business interests.
Trump’s win-loss record is an impressive one, winning 451 times and losing only 38 times. In some 500 cases, judges have dismissed plaintiffs’ claims against Trump; hundreds of other cases ended with the available public records unclear about the resolution.
Whether as plaintiff or defendant, what is important to underscore is that neither facts nor laws matter much to Trump, despite his laughable claim that he will “never lie.” As Zirin has written:
Whether he was entitled to the benefit of the law, orwhether he could support his positions with evidence, orwhether his claims stated a cause or action, or whetherhe was really damaged was irrelevant to Donald Trump.What was important was to use the lawsuit to attractattention, to exert economic pressure, and to prove hewas the kid on the block not to be messed with. And hisadversaries largely gave way during his rise to celebrityand power.
Once he became president, Trump began weaponizing the Department of Justice against his enemies and on behalf of his criminal allies. After the GOP took control of the House in 2023, Trump’s weaponizing of justice continued from the House controlled subcommittees.
Meanwhile, as Trump’s criminality escalated after the 2020 election, there was still an unwillingness or reluctance by law enforcement to go after him with its full authority and celerity.
Throughout Trump’s professional career, he has always been at war with legal standards and normative rules that he regards as made to be broken or avoided at all costs. Besides, the only people who abide by the rules are the suckers and losers — unlike winners and smart people who team up with scoundrels and mobsters to accomplish their objectives.
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Moreover, Trump’s lifetime of adjudication is found in a lengthy background of litigation accompanied by a pathological pattern of lying in which Trump’s particular style of intimidation evolved and morphed into one courtroom episodic drama after another — somewhat like his reality TV show, The Celebrity Apprentice.
Unfortunately, because the Manhattan trial for conspiracy to interfere with the 2016 presidential election was not televised, the majority of Americans were not paying much, if any, attention to the day-by-day proceedings.
Speaking of lies, pathological or otherwise, I found it both rich and amusing when Todd Blanche during his summation for the defense dubbed Michael Cohen a G.L.O.A.T., or the “greatest liar of all time.” After all, his client is in a league of his own in this category with false or misleading claims during his four years in office totaling 30, 573, according to the Washington Post.
Michael Cohen is seen on May 16, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Andrea Renault/Star Max/GC Images via Getty Images)
It should not have surprised anybody familiar with Trump’s legal history that when he became president that “he would seek to weaponize the justice system, use his power to bend the law, attack his enemies and critics, and claim victory when there was none” as Zirin, also a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has written.
For example, the former president used his time in the White House to stave off the prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D). Vance’s successor, Alvin Bragg, ultimately did the job.
Trump did the same with New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) until such time as the Trump Organization and its CFO Allen Weisselberg — but not CEO Trump — were arraigned and later convicted on multiple criminal charges alleging a 15-year tax scheme that was still in progress as of June 30, 2021.
Straight out of theRoy Cohn-Trump playbook, the Trump Organization released one of its classic assaults on the prosecutors rather than an affirmative defense of the indicted CFO or itself. As quoted by David Frum in The Atlantic:
Allen Weisselberg is a loving and devoted husband,father and grandfather who has worked for the TrumpOrganization for 48 years. He is now being used bythe Manhattan District Attorney as a pawn in a scorchedearth attempt to harm the former President. The DistrictAttorney is bringing a case involving employee benefitsthat neither the IRS nor any other District Attorney wouldever think of bringing. This is not justice; this is politics.
Trump’s remarks regarding this criminal prosecution of his CFO and company like his four criminal prosecutions are always about attacking the prosecutors or the judges as being part of a “deep state,” the “radical left” and for being “rude, nasty, and totally biased.”
With the usual refrain, Trump is always telling us how he is being persecuted and victimized. He endlessly talks of these cases representing the ultimate witch hunt or “crime of the century.”
On Thursday, Trump declared May 30 the “darkest day in American history” — apparently forgetting the day in 1941 that the Empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the day terrorists attacked New York City and Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001. He certainly forgot about a certain day in January 2021, when his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in his name while Trump watched from the White House.
A fundraising message from Donald Trump's presidential campaign following a jury returning a guilty verdict May 30, 2024, on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels. (Trump campaign)
Always fearing that one of his loyal employees like Cohen may eventually flip on him, Trump routinely underscores how the prosecutors are “in search of a crime” and that they “will do anything to frighten people into making up the stories or lies that they want.”
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Of course, this is simply a part of Trump’s preparation or MO for civil or criminal litigations should they come to that. After all, he and his legal team know that rarely are the laws or the facts on their side. If these were, then Trump and his lawyers know full well that he — a former president of the United States — would never have been charged in the first place.
In most instances, therefore, Trump is always hoping that neither the laws nor the facts will matter as much as the political diversions that he and his team will be attempting to raise both inside and outside the courtroom for the benefit of at least one member of the jury.
Once again, as Frum in his Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy (2020) had articulated when the former president was still in office: “Trump worked all of his life on the theory that law can be subordinated to political favors and political pressures. That theory has carried him this far — and it’s pretty far, all things considered.”
It is indeed, even better than the most cynical politicians could have ever imagined.
Trump as president — and now as former president seeking to regain his lost office — has continued with his theory and practice of weaponizing the law. The convicted felon now also has the political assistance of a Trumpian majority on the Supreme Court as well as a Trump appointed federal judge for the Southern District of Florida slowly walking her adjudication. Ergo, both the January 6 and the classified documents trials that could have been over by now have yet to begin. And most likely they will not occur before 2025.
From the perspective of “justice delayed is justice denied,” it took eight years for his first criminal conviction to happen. With respect to his three other criminal indictments, it will have been at least four years and counting.
But Thursday’s ruling by a jury of Trump’s peers is proof that Trump, for all his money and influence and power, can’t run forever.
Gregg Barak is an emeritus professor of criminology and criminal justice at Eastern Michigan University and the author of several books on the crimes of the powerful, including Criminology on Trump (2022) and its 2024 sequel, Indicting the 45th President: Boss Trump, the GOP, and What We Can Do About the Threat to American Democracy.
