THE wait was finally over May 30 afternoon when the New York jury convicted former President Donald Trump of all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records.
He is the first president in US history to be convicted of a felony.
Sentencing is scheduled on July 11, according to Judge Juan Merchan.
As a convicted felon, can Trump still run for president?
According to CNN, the US Constitution lays out just three requirements for presidential candidates. They must:
Be a natural born citizen.
Be at least 35 years old.
Have been a US resident for at least 14 years.
Trump meets all three requirements. There is, arguably, another criterion laid out in the 14th Amendment, where it states that no one who has previously taken an oath of office who engages in insurrection can be an officer of the US, CNN reported.
The US Supreme Court reportedly ruled earlier this year that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition. That’s not happening any time soon.
“Can Trump still vote?” asked CNN.
It depends. Each state makes its own rules. Trump is now a Florida resident – and Florida voters, in 2018, overwhelmingly backed a referendum to reenfranchise convicted felons.
Neil Volz, deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, an organization that works to help reenfranchise formerly incarcerated people, predicted Trump will have little problem voting since Florida actually defers to the jurisdiction of a felony conviction as to whether a felon can vote.
In New York, after a law passed in 2021, any convicted felon who is not incarcerated is eligible to register to vote.
PRISON TIME
CNN said even if the judge ultimately tried to give Trump prison time, it is highly unlikely that Trump’s right to appeal his conviction would be exhausted before Election Day. If, somehow, Trump was convicted in one of the two federal criminal cases against him before Election Day, that might be another story.
Each of the 34 counts was brought in connection with Trump’s role in reimbursing his former attorney, Michael Cohen, for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep her quiet about an extramarital affair she says she had with Trump a decade earlier.
Prosecutors say that payment was part of a wider conspiracy enacted by Trump and his allies from 2015 to 2017 to suppress negative stories about then-candidate Trump in a bid to boost his candidacy and keep damaging information from voters.
Trump, who is a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, pleaded not guilty to all counts during a roughly 45-minute arraignment at the Manhattan criminal courthouse Tuesday afternoon, during which he appeared somber and contemplative, declining to speak to cameras in the hallway outside of the courtroom. The former president was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury but the exact charges were unknown until the indictment was unsealed during the proceedings.
The charges have upended the American political landscape, and the ensuing court proceedings could last well into next year – affecting the race for the White House. Trump is reportedly next due in court in December for a pretrial hearing.
“From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a court filing.
“In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York. The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme,” the filing says.
BUSINESS RECORDS
In New York, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor but can be elevated to a felony if the act is committed with the intention of committing, aiding or concealing a second crime.
Bragg said during a news conference that the scheme was a bid to conceal violations of New York’s election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to illegally promote a candidate. Bragg also noted that the $130,000 payment exceeded the federal campaign contribution limit.
Cohen – who is identified in court filings as “Lawyer A” – pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in 2018 for his role in the payments and was sentenced to prison.
But the legal theory behind the elevation from misdemeanor to felony charges is untested, and Trump’s attorneys say they plan to move to dismiss all the charges against the former client.
Bragg has also been the target of blanket attacks by Republicans accusing him of punching up the charges and of prosecuting Trump with a political motivation.
Bragg defended his office against those allegations in a statement Tuesday and later during a press conference.
“Manhattan is home to the country’s most significant business market. We cannot allow New York businesses to manipulate their records to cover up criminal conduct,” Bragg said in the statement. “As the Statement of Facts describes, the trail of money and lies exposes a pattern that, the People allege, violates one of New York’s basic and fundamental business laws. As this office has done time and time again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law.”
Prosecutors say Trump was part of a complicated effort to illegally disguise reimbursement checks made out to Cohen for the Daniels payment.
BRAG
On Oct. 26, 2016 – just days before the election and in the wake of the dissemination of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump was caught on film crassly bragging about sexual harassment – Cohen set up a shell corporation in New York after speaking with Trump on the phone, according to court document. Cohen then transferred money from his personal home equity line account into the shell company's account, which was subsequently transferred to an account belonging to Daniels’ lawyer.
After Trump’s election, Cohen and the then-chief financial officer of the Trump Organization agreed that Cohen would be reimbursed $420,000 – the original payment plus $50,000, which was then doubled so Cohen could claim the payment as income rather than reimbursement, according to the filing.
Trump, the chief financial officer and Cohen then agreed that the payment would be split up into monthly installments. Cohen would invoice the Trump Organization for legal services rendered in each month of 2017, as stipulated by a legal retainer agreement. But that would be a lie, according to documents – there never was a retainer agreement in place.
Trump and Cohen met in the Oval Office in February to finalize this plan, according to filings.
Over the rest of the year, Cohen was paid according to the plan. In total, 11 checks were issued, the first two of which were issued by a Trump Organization employee, falsely recorded and drawn from a trust that held the company’s assets while he was president.
The remaining nine checks were signed by Trump himself and drew directly from his bank account, prosecutors say. Each of the checks and stubs was accompanied by a false invoice.
The 34 felony counts Trump was charged with each represent a business record that Bragg says was falsified illegally in order to pay Cohen back.
‘CATCH-AND-KILL’
But the payment to Daniels was only one of three prosecutors listed as part of a wider, illegal catch-and-kill scheme that started in 2015.
In August of that year, just after Trump had announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump, Cohen and American Media Inc. Chief Executive David Pecker had a meeting at Trump Tower, during which Pecker agreed to be Trump’s “eyes and ears” and alert Cohen about any possible negative stories that could materialize about Trump.
Just months later, Pecker learned that a doorman was trying to sell a false story about a child he says Trump had out of wedlock. Pecker’s company bought the exclusive rights to the story for $50,000 in order to spike it, and, even when the story was revealed to be fake, did not release the doorman from the agreement at Cohen’s urging, according to filings. Pecker falsely recorded the payment in the company's business records.
The following year, another woman – listed as “Woman 1” in Tuesday’s court filings but widely assumed to be Playboy Model Karen McDougal – alleged an extramarital affair with Trump. Trump, Cohen and Pecker discussed the situation, and Pecker’s company paid McDougal $150,000 to silence her. American Media Inc. falsely recorded the payment in its ledgers, and Pecker was operating under the assumption that Trump would pay the company back, according to prosecutors.
Cohen and Trump discussed the reimbursement – Trump, at one point, asked Cohen, “So what do we got to pay for this? One fifty?” and suggested paying by cash, according to documents – but the reimbursement ultimately never took place.
GUILTY
Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violence for his role in both the Daniels and McDougal payments in 2018 and stated that he had committed the crime at Trump’s direction. Separately, American Media Inc. admitted its role in the payment to McDougal in a non-prosecution agreement.
According to prosecutors, Trump met with Pecker after his election but before the inauguration and thanked the media tycoon for his role in paying off the doorman and McDougal.
The next summer, in 2017, Trump invited Pecker to dinner at the White House as a sign of gratitude.
(With reports from Claire Hansen, USNews)
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