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- By Levi Rickert
Native Vote 2024. The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, 77, was convicted on 34 counts by a jury yesterday in a hush-money case.
With the conviction, Trump becomes the first U.S. president ever to be convicted of a felony. He was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film star.
The jury deliberated for nine and a half hours in a New York court and returned the verdict just after 5 p.m. on Thursday afternoon.
Trump faces sentencing on July 11, 2024, just days before the beginning of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trump faces a maximum sentence of one and a half to four years in prison. Legal experts say that given his lack of a prior criminal record and the fact the counts were not violent or drug-related, he will be sentenced to short jail time or no jail time at all.
The conviction of the Republican party’s choice for this presidential election will now test whether or not American voters want to have a convicted felon become the leader of the country.
President Biden has remained silent on the case during the five-week trial. On Thursday, the White House said: “We respect the rule of law, and have no additional comment.”
The Biden-Harris campaign released the following statement after yesterday’s verdict:
“In New York today, we saw that 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. 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. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”
Trump, who has consistently made disparaging and abusive comments about the judge and the court proceedings, spoke to reporters after the verdict.
“This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who is corrupt. ... We’ll keep fighting. We’ll fight to the end, and we’ll win. ... The real verdict is going to be November 5, by the people. They know what happened here. I am a very innocent man,” Trump said.
Congressional Republicans called the system rigged and contended the trial was political as if to justify their support for their presidential candidate. However, none of them maintained Trump’s innocence.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. echoed the Republican reaction to the verdict.
“The Democratic Party’s strategy is to beat President Trump in the courtroom rather than the ballot box,” Kennedy wrote on X. “This will backfire in November.”
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