The Conviction of Donald J Trump
It’s sad but just that ex-President Trump has been convicted of doctoring business records to conceal his sexual affairs with women not his wife to keep the sordid news from American voters. Worse the affairs occurred while his wife, Melania, was pregnant and waiting to have their child, Barron.
We all can remember that other Presidential aspirants such as John Edwards and Gary Hart had affairs and tried to cover them up. They lost their promising political careers and Edwards was prosecuted, but not successfully, for his cover up attempts.
We can all remember the extraordinary extent that House Republicans went to impeach Bill Clinton for having affairs with people like Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky, and for Clinton’s efforts to lie and cover up the affairs.
The key difference was that these were Democratic presidential candidates, and Trump seeks to be the Republican presidential candidate. Clinton was a sitting President when the Newt Gingrich led House of Representatives and Special Counsel Ken Starr sought to remove him from office.
The affairs and the cover up speak to the character of the man/men who want to be President, and that is why Trump sought to cover up the affairs during the lead up to the tightly contested 2016 Presidential election. For some voters, such character issues are disqualifying although more often only for candidates from the opposing party. Trump, David Pecker from the National Enquirer, and Trump’s own lawyer Michael Cohen concocted the plan to buy off and bury the stories of Trump’s affairs. Trump, Allen Weisselberg (Trump’s CFO), and Cohen devised the scheme to conceal from the public the hush money payments to the women who had had affairs with Trump.
Cohen was sentenced to prison for three years for his conduct, including perjury on Trump’s behalf. He says that he was held in solitary confinement during his imprisonment for writing a book detailing Trump’s misconduct. Weisselberg was twice sentenced to five months for his criminal conduct (tax fraud and lying under oath in court about the Trump organization). Pecker agreed to cooperate with law enforcement and provide truthful testimony to avoid prosecution for his conduct. Trump, the paymaster, the beneficiary and the mastermind, has now been convicted on 34 criminal counts of doctoring his business records to conceal his conduct in buying off the stories of his affairs.
Trump claims without any evidence that the trial was rigged; the judge was corrupt, and the prosecution was politically motivated. His echo chamber of leading Republicans aspirants for the Vice Presidency joins his chorus of threats against the US judicial system, just as they have fallen into line with Trump’s lies that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged. This speaks to the character of the sycophants from his party who deride the judicial process that has ultimately held Trump to account.
It speaks to the strengths of the American judicial system that 12 random unbiased jurors can sit for weeks and render a unanimous verdict on all 34 counts. It speaks to the strengths of the American judicial system that it can try and convict an ex-President for his conduct based on evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
Would a Texas Attorney General Paxton bring charges against ex-President Trump for any criminal misconduct whatsoever? Would a jury of Republican elected officials unanimously convict ex-President Trump for anything? Not bloody likely.
We already know and remember that when Trump tried to overthrow a free and fair election that a majority of House Republicans tried to go along with his scheme. We already know and remember that a majority of Senate Republicans refused to convict the President after he had rallied his supporters to take over the US Capitol and punish his Vice President for failing to go along with his illegal scheme to overthrow the US Constitution. We already know that certain members of the US Supreme Court (and their family members) expressed support for the January 6 insurrection and are delaying federal trials of Trump for his role in trying to overturn a free and fair election. And we know that a Trump appointed Florida judge is delaying, delaying and then further delaying his trial for taking and refusing to return to the National Archives top national security secrets from the White House.
We all need to express our support and appreciation for those relative handfuls of Republican lawmakers and officials, like Liz Cheney, Larry Hogan, Geoff Duncan, and Adam Kinzinger, with the courage to stand up for the US Constitution and the American judicial system. We all must stand behind the courage of the New York judge, jury and prosecution team that have begun the long process of holding Trump to account; we must protect their safety for doing their duty. We should not expect any votes to change due to the NY verdict; the American people either loathe or love Trump and are fully aware of the extent of his vices in making their political judgements about him this coming November.