Trump conviction has landmark impacts

Scholars call it a win for rule of law, an unknown for November [2024] election

By: Karissa Waddick
USA today

.... A Single word uttered 34 times in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday [05/30/2024] afternoon changed American history.
..... "Guilty."
..... That was the outcome delivered from a 12-person New York jury that found former President Donald Trump culpable on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to commit or conceal another crime. The criminal case centered around allegations that he attempted to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to an adult film actress so that it wouldn't hurt his prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
..... Trump is now the first former U.S. president convicted of a crime. he's also the first person convicted of a felony who is on track to become a major party presidential nominee. Experts said the event is a triumph for the rule of law - for now- regardless of whether it affects the outcome of the next election.
..... The biggest takeaway?
..... "In a nation ruled by laws, not men, no one is above the rule of law," said Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University. "Not even a president."

No moment like this

..... Other former U.S. presidents have been enmeshed in high-profile litigation stemming from a political scandal. Trump's New York Hush money case has drawn comparisons to the Watergate scandal that need Richard Nixon's presidency and then-President Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998 during his second term in office.
..... but Susan Liebell, a political science professor at Saint Joseph;s University in Philadelphia, said those events aren't equivalent to Trump's 34 felony convictions because Nixon and Clinton weren't convicted of a crime. And Liebell said she's "deeply suspicious" of anyone who says they know what impact the New York verdict will have on American politics based on those prior examples. "No American president has ever been convicted in a criminal proceeding," Liebell said. "T Here are no historical precedents." Unlike Trump, Nixon never faced trial. He was preemptively pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, before he could be criminally prosecuted for his role in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquartered and subsequent cover-up. Nixon resigned from office as momentum grew in Congress for his impeachment.
..... Trump, meanwhile, is the presumptive GOP nominee for president - and he has shown no loans of ending his third bid for the White House as a result of Thursday's [05/30/2024] verdict. Trump remained defiant and showed no signs of remorse throughout the trial, saying he "didn't do anything wrong."
..... Jeffrey engel, director of presidential history projects at Southern Methodist University, argued that while "Nixon is not typically whom historians turn to for examples of exalted presidential behavior," the former president "knew the job, and the country, was bigger than himself."To date, Donald Trump does not," Engel said. Engel and Shannon O-Brien, a professor and self-described "presidency nerd" at the University of Texas at Austin, also pushed back on comparisons to Clinton's 1998 House impeachment for lying to investigators and obstructing justice tied to an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.
.... The Senate acquitted Clinton after his impeachment in the House of Representatives, and the Justice Department didn't pursue federal criminal penalties against the Democrat due to a policy dating to Nixon's time that sitting presidents cannot be charged with crimes while in office.
.... By comparison, Trump was found guilty on 34 states-counts by a 12-person jury. He also still faces criminal charges in three other jurisdictions tied to allegations he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election that he lost and kept classified government materials in his possession after leaving the White House and then obstructing the investigation into the matter. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

A constitutional victory

..... Historians described the verdict in Trump's trial as a win for some of the most heralded legal principles in the county, chief among those the phase "equal justice under law,' which is inscribed at the top of the U.S. Supreme Court building.
..... Engel argued that the "men who wrote the Constitution would be pleased" that the political system they designed did not buckle. Instead, as intended, he argued, a former commander in chief received the same treatment in the justice system as any other American citizen. a New York grand jury last year [2023] found that there was sufficient evidence to bring a case against Trump for the hush money payments. After listening to that evidence in a Manhattan courtroom over six weeks, the jury of Trump's peers found the ex-president guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
..... "He was not convicted by President Biden or his political enemies but unanimously and quickly by a jury of 12 ordinary Americans," said Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University. O'Brien argued that Trump and his supporters were making unfounded allegations of bias from the New York courts because accepting its legitimacy would harm their side's political prospects.
..... "He cannot respect a system that holds him accountable," O'Brien said. "He has to tear it down because he is out of other options."

An uncertain future

..... Shortly after the trial's conclusion on Thursday, [05/30/2024] Trump argued that the "real verdict" on his innocence will come on election Day.
..... The latest RealClearPolitics Average of national polls shows Trump and President Joe Biden stuck in a dead heat, with Trump holding a marginal lead.
..... "We have no idea how votes will react," Liebell said.
..... "The question is how it affects independent voters and Republican who may agree with conservative policies but have concerns about corruption and integrity."

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