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    Donald Trump and American Justice

    Readers offer a range of reactions and reflections.To the Editor:Re “Guilty: Jury Convicts Trump on All 34 Counts” (front page, May 31):I was overcome with a sense of giddiness on Thursday afternoon as I walked through Manhattan and news broke that former President Donald Trump had been convicted on 34 felony counts.I was glued to the live news updates on my phone, and soon enough messages began pouring in from like-minded friends who shared my sense of satisfaction that the justice system is alive and well, and that the verdict showed us that no one is above the law.Nonetheless, it took mere minutes before a more sober reality set in, and I contemplated how the verdict will likely play into the strategic hands of Mr. Trump’s campaign, energizing his ardent supporters, perhaps even working in his favor among some sympathetic swing voters.That so many of us find that morally offensive and reprehensible, while so many of our fellow Americans simply do not, reaffirms how deeply and dangerously divided this country truly is.Cody LyonBrooklynTo the Editor:Our system of laws has spoken. A jury of his peers found Donald Trump guilty on all counts in what was supposed to be the weakest of the criminal cases against the former president.Unfortunately, our Constitution does not prohibit a convicted felon from running for president; it even allows an elected candidate who has been criminally convicted to govern, even from prison.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Alvin Bragg Speaks After Trump’s Guilty Verdict

    In February 2022, two months into his tenure, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, made a momentous decision: He would not pursue a criminal case against Donald J. Trump.He was criticized then for seeming to drop his office’s long-running investigation into the former president. He was criticized later that year, when he appeared to have refocused the investigation on a hush-money payment to a porn star who said she’d had sex with him.And he was criticized once more several months later, in March of last year, when he became the first prosecutor to indict an American president, charging Mr. Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records. Critics at the time — including some prominent Democrats — said the case was not strong enough to have brought against a former president.But on Thursday, shortly after 5 p.m., Mr. Bragg won one of the most consequential trials in American history: Mr. Trump was found guilty on all counts. Jurors determined that he had coordinated an unlawful conspiracy to win the White House in 2016 and had falsified records to cover up his scheme.“I did my job, and we did our job,” Mr. Bragg said at a news conference on Thursday after the verdict, when asked about the criticism he received about his handling of the investigation and then the case. “There are many voices out there, but the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury, and the jury has spoken.”The Trump Manhattan Criminal Verdict, Count By CountFormer President Donald J. Trump faced 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, related to the reimbursement of hush money paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels in order to cover up a sex scandal around the 2016 presidential election.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Takeaways From Trump’s Conviction in Hush-Money Trial

    It was an end like no other for a trial like no other: a former American president found guilty of 34 felonies.The conviction of Donald Trump, read aloud shortly after 5 p.m. by the jury foreman as the former president sat just feet away, ended months of legal maneuvering, weeks of testimony, days of deliberation and several nervous minutes after the jury entered the Manhattan courtroom.The former president and the presumptive Republican nominee was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a scheme to cover up an extramarital tryst with a porn star, Stormy Daniels, in 2006. That encounter — which the former president denied — led to a $130,000 hush-money payment whose concealment gave rise to the 34 counts of falsifying business records that made Mr. Trump a felon.Mr. Trump’s sentencing is scheduled for July 11; he has indicated he will appeal.Here are five takeaways from the last day of Mr. Trump’s momentous trial.A grueling trial ended suddenly.Thursday, the second day of deliberations, seemed to be moving toward a quiet conclusion. Then, suddenly the word came from the judge, Juan M. Merchan: There was a verdict.Less than an hour later, the headlines reading “guilty” began to be written.The decision came just hours after the jury had asked to hear testimony involving the first witness — David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer — including his account of the now infamous 2015 meeting at Trump Tower where he agreed to publish positive stories and bury negative stories about Mr. Trump’s nascent candidacy.The Trump Manhattan Criminal Verdict, Count By CountFormer President Donald J. Trump faced 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, related to the reimbursement of hush money paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels in order to cover up a sex scandal around the 2016 presidential election.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Here’s What the Prosecution in Trump’s Trial Said in Its Closing Argument

    Over more than five hours on Tuesday, a Manhattan prosecutor made his final case to the jury in Donald J. Trump’s criminal hush-money trial that the former president had orchestrated “a conspiracy and a coverup” to help him win the 2016 presidential election.The prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, argued that 20 witnesses called to the stand and evidence presented during six weeks of testimony had shown that Mr. Trump was guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The charges stem from his repayment, made on the eve of the 2016 election, of hush money that silenced a porn star’s account of a sexual encounter a decade earlier.Mr. Steinglass wove a sweeping story of how Mr. Trump, with help from The National Enquirer and his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, among others, sought to bury negative news stories about Mr. Trump in the days and months before the election. One effort included the catch-and-kill operation to buy the silence of Stormy Daniels, the porn star, which Mr. Steinglass said kept the American public from knowing about her account when they voted.“This scheme, cooked up by these men, at this time, could very well be what got President Trump elected,” Mr. Steinglass said. “This was overt election fraud, an act in furtherance of the conspiracy to promote Mr. Trump’s election by unlawful means.”A deal with Ms. Daniels took on extra urgency, he said, following the leak in October 2016 of an “Access Hollywood” tape that captured Mr. Trump bragging about grabbing women’s genitals.Mr. Steinglass started his closing argument by countering the statements by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche earlier in the day. He said that the Trump team’s closing argument — which claimed that Mr. Trump was a victim of extortion — did not change the underlying facts of the case. And, Mr. Steinglass noted, extortion is not a defense for falsifying business records.Mr. Steinglass acknowledged to the jurors that some of the witnesses had biases. Both Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels have talked publicly about wanting to see Mr. Trump convicted, and Mr. Cohen admitted on the stand that he stole money from the Trump Organization. But he said their testimony was credible and often corroborated by others who took the stand.“I’m not asking you to feel bad for Michael Cohen,” Mr. Steinglass told the jury. “He made his bed.”At the end of the marathon day, just before 8 p.m., Mr. Steinglass said that while the former president is a former president, the law applies to him the same as it does to everyone else. More

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    Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 16, 2024

    M. Cohen

    Cross/Blanche
    3839
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    And you had been hearing on television that they were
    dangling pardons. So, you directed your lawyer, hey, find out
    if I can get a pardon. I want this nightmare to end, right?
    A Not if I can get a pardon. If the President was going
    to be doing these pre-pardons.
    But you

    you testified that you were 100 percent
    open to accepting it, anything to end this, right?
    8
    A
    Yes, sir.
    9
    And so

    and you did that with a couple of your
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    A
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    lawyers, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Costello, correct?
    Mr. Costello was never my lawyer.
    Well, you asked Mr. Costello, putting aside whether he
    was your lawyer, you asked Mr. Costello to reach out to people
    in the administration, including Mr. Giuliani, about the
    possibility of a pardon?
    A We spoke about it.
    And as part of your conversation with him, you asked
    him to reach out to Mr. Giuliani and explore it, correct?
    Yes, sir.
    And so, when you testified under oath less than one
    year later, February, on February 27th, 2019, that you never
    asked for, nor would you ever accept a pardon, that was a lie,
    wasn’t it?
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    A
    At the time it was accurate.
    25
    Well, the very next day so, again, February 27th,
    Susan Pearce-Bates, RPR, CCR, RSA
    Principal Court Reporter More

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    Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 13, 2024

    M. Cohen Direct/Hoffinger
    3277
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    was there at The Trump Organization about executives coming in
    2
    to meet with Mr. Trump?
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    A
    Mr.
    Trump had an open-door policy, which, if there was
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    somebody in there, you waited; and if not, you knocked on the
    door, and I would say, “Boss, do you have a second?”, and I
    would walk right in.
    7
    Q
    And others did the same, to your knowledge?
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    A
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    To my knowledge, yes.
    Now, when you met with Mr. Trump at The Trump
    Organization, in his office, did you, generally, need
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    I’m
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    sorry.
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    Did you, generally, record those meetings in your calendar?
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    A
    No, ma’am.
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    As part of your work at The Trump Organization, did
    you feel that it was part of your job to keep him updated on
    matters that you were handling for him?
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    Yes.
    It was actually required.
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    A
    Tell us what you mean by that.
    When he would task you with something, he would then
    say, “Keep me informed. Let me know what’s going on.”
    And what he was saying, what everybody did is, as soon as
    you had a result, an answer, you would go straight back and
    tell him. Especially if it was a matter that was troubling to
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    him.
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    So, two things, just to break that down.
    Laurie Eisenberg, CSR, RPR
    Senior Court Reporter More

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    Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 10, 2024

    1
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    J. Jarmel-Schneider

    Direct/Conroy
    3217
    And if we could just continue going down January and
    February, those two columns, we talked about the one invoice,
    two vouchers; and is there only one check?
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    A
    Yes.
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    with?
    How many invoices were there, in total, on this chart?
    Eleven.
    And can you just read which counts they’re associated
    Counts 1, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29 and 32.
    After January and February, is there one invoice for
    each month for the rest of the year?
    Going down to vouchers, same question. Could you just
    read the count number for each of the vouchers?

    A
    7
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    Yes.
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    Sure.
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    Sure.
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    A
    Yes.
    Counts 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30 and 33.
    And is there one voucher for every month in 2017?
    Yes.
    And, finally, in checks, could you read the count
    number for each check?
    It’s counts 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31 and 34.
    And after January and February, is there one check for
    each of the remaining months in 2017?
    Laurie Eisenberg, CSR, RPR
    Senior Court Reporter More

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    Kai Cenat Resolves Union Square Melee Charges With Apology, Officials Say

    The social media superstar known for marathon streaming sessions was charged with inciting a riot after a video game console giveaway erupted in mayhem last summer.The social media star Kai Cenat will not be prosecuted on charges of inciting a riot in Manhattan after agreeing to post a public apology and paying for the damage caused when thousands of his fans erupted in a chaotic melee in Union Square last summer, officials said on Tuesday.A spokesman for Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said prosecutors planned to drop their case against Mr. Cenat and two other men, Denzel Dennis and Muktar Din, in exchange for the apology and $57,000 in restitution.Mr. Cenat paid $55,000 of the restitution total, which went to the Union Square Partnership to cover landscaping and other costs, the district attorney’s office said. Mr. Dennis and Mr. Din paid the balance.Mr. Cenat posted the apology on his Snapchat account on Tuesday, and Mr. Bragg’s spokeswoman, M’Niyah Lynn, said the prosecution would be dropped once the apology had been online for 24 hours. Mr. Dennis and Mr. Din were expected to post the apology as well.Mr. Cenat, noting that he is from New York, wrote in the apology that what began as a promotional event had quickly turned into “an unsafe situation for the people who live and work in the neighborhood, first responders and my followers that attended the event.”“It was never my intent for it to get so out of hand,” he added, “and I have learned a very valuable lesson that social media is a very powerful tool to do good, but it can also cause dangerous, unwanted situations if it is not used properly.”The Union Square episode, which began shortly after 3 p.m. on Aug. 4 and lasted several hours, resulted in 65 arrests (nearly half of them of underage youths); injuries to police officers and some of those in the crowd; and damage to food carts, police vehicles and stores, officials said.The events began when Mr. Cenat, who has millions of followers on Twitch and other social media platforms, summoned his fans to the area, where he said he would give away video game consoles. The gathering lacked a city permit, and the police learned of it from a social media post only hours before the crowd began swelling, officials said at the time.Hordes of young people were soon packing Union Square Park and spilling onto the surrounding streets and sidewalks and blocking cars and pedestrians. The Union Square Greenmarket shut down early, and subway trains began bypassing the Union Square station.Within an hour, the Police Department had initiated a Level 4 mobilization, its highest-level response. Some in the crowd were peaceful, but others were not. One cluster of people stormed a construction site. Building materials, rocks, bottles, basketballs, a computer and fireworks sailed through the crowd.“I believe he saw that day how much influence he really has,” Jeffrey Maddrey, the Police Department’s chief of department, said of Mr. Cenat afterward. More