Decisions and Verdicts

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      Could Trump Pardon Himself if Re-Elected?

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      If Donald J. Trump were to be elected president in November, he would, after his inauguration, have the ability to grant pardons for federal convictions. But that power does not apply to state convictions, so Mr. Trump could not give himself clemency for the 34 felonies now on his record in New York State.Presidential pardon power is derived from Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, which says the commander in chief “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”But those convicted in cases brought by states are not considered to have committed crimes against the nation. If Mr. Trump wanted to receive a pardon on his state felony charges, he would have to pursue one like any other convicted criminal in New York State: by asking the governor.The current governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, would be unlikely to pardon Mr. Trump. After his conviction on Thursday, Ms. Hochul said: “Today’s verdict reaffirms that no one is above the law.”The 34 counts on which Mr. Trump was convicted were all Class E felonies, the least serious felony in New York State. He could be sentenced up to four years in prison, or probation. The judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, has scheduled a sentencing hearing for July 11. More

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      Trump se convierte en el primer expresidente condenado de EE. UU.

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      Un jurado de Manhattan determinó que el expresidente falsificó registros comerciales para ocultar un escándalo sexual que podría haber descarrilado su campaña presidencial de 2016.Donald Trump fue declarado culpable el jueves de falsificar registros comerciales para encubrir un escándalo sexual que amenazó con afectar su campaña presidencial de 2016, culminando un juicio excepcional que puso a prueba la resistencia del sistema judicial estadounidense y transformó al expresidente en un delincuente.El veredicto de culpabilidad en Manhattan —en todos los 34 cargos— resonará en toda la nación y el mundo porque marca el comienzo de una nueva era de la política presidencial. Trump llevará la mancha del veredicto durante su tercera contienda a la Casa Blanca, ya que los votantes ahora deberán elegir entre un presidente en funciones impopular y un delincuente convicto.Aunque antes era impensable que los estadounidenses eligieran a un delincuente como su líder, el comportamiento insurrecto de Trump deleita a sus simpatizantes mientras arrasa con las normas del país. Ahora, el hombre que se negó a aceptar su derrota electoral en 2020 ya está tratando de deslegitimar su condena, intentando afirmar la primacía de su poder político bruto sobre el Estado de derecho de la nación.Trump mostró poca emoción dentro del juzgado al conocer su destino, cerró los ojos y movió lentamente la cabeza mientras un silencio descendía sobre la sala del tribunal. Pero cuando salió, tenía la mandíbula tensa y se dirigió a las cámaras de televisión congregadas. Declaró que el veredicto era “una desgracia” y, con expresión sombría, proclamó: “El verdadero veredicto se dará el 5 de noviembre, por el pueblo”, refiriéndose al día de las elecciones.El juez que lideró el caso, Juan Merchan, dictará sentencia contra Trump el 11 de julio, pocos días antes de que se celebre la Convención Nacional Republicana que lo convertirá en el candidato presidencial del partido.Alvin Bragg, el fiscal que trabajó en el caso, declinó revelar el jueves si pediría una pena de prisión. El juez podría condenar a Trump a un máximo de cuatro años de cárcel, pero el expresidente podría ser condenado a libertad condicional, y es posible que nunca vea el interior de una celda. Su apelación podría prolongarse durante meses, o incluso más tiempo, y estará en libertad haciendo campaña por la presidencia mientras espera su castigo.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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      Will It Matter? Searching for Clues in the Polls About a Trump Conviction.

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      He may not lose support at all, but recent backing from young and nonwhite voters might be likelier to fade.After the verdict in New York.Mike Segar/ReutersFor almost a decade, Donald J. Trump has done, said and survived things that would have doomed any other politician.He even saw his support increase after four sets of criminal indictments last year — including the charges for falsifying business records that he was ultimately found guilty of Thursday.The polls cannot tell us how voters will respond to the unprecedented verdict. Most voters weren’t even paying close attention to the trial, and asking voters about hypotheticals is always fraught. With his track record of political resilience, there’s surely little reason to expect his loyal MAGA base to suddenly collapse after a guilty verdict — or even imprisonment. It’s possible he won’t lose any support at all.But in a close election in a closely divided country, any losses could be pivotal. While Mr. Trump has survived many controversies, he has also suffered a political penalty for his conduct. He did lose re-election, after all. And this cycle, there is one reason to wonder whether Mr. Trump might now be more vulnerable: He depends on the support of many young and nonwhite voters who haven’t voted for him in the past, and who might not prove as loyal as those who have stood by his side from the start.In the last six months, many pollsters have asked voters to consider the hypothetical scenario where Mr. Trump was convicted at trial. It’s important to emphasize that these poll results shouldn’t be interpreted as simulations of how voters will behave after a real-world conviction. The questions don’t replicate how voters will react to the full context and facts of the case, or to statements of support from Republicans, or to the coverage on Fox News. Instead, they put a hypothetical conviction right in the face of the respondent.Nonetheless, the results do show that a meaningful number of Mr. Trump’s supporters are understandably uncomfortable with the idea of supporting a felon. This is a line that Mr. Trump hasn’t crossed before, and a sliver of his supporters were even willing to tell a pollster they would vote for President Biden if Mr. Trump were found guilty.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

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      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

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      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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      Supreme Court Clears Way for N.R.A. to Pursue First Amendment Challenge

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      The opinion, by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, found that the gun rights group had plausibly claimed a First Amendment violation.The Supreme Court sided with the National Rifle Association on Thursday, saying it could pursue a First Amendment claim against a New York state official who had encouraged companies to stop doing business with it after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla.Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for a unanimous court, found that the N.R.A. had plausibly claimed a violation of the First Amendment, sending the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, for further proceedings.The N.R.A., in asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, cited what it described as the enormous regulatory power of the state official, Maria T. Vullo, a former superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services. The N.R.A. accused Ms. Vullo of applying “pressure tactics — including back-channel threats, ominous guidance letters and selective enforcement of regulatory infractions” and warned of wide-ranging consequences of a ruling against it. A court decision siding with Ms. Vullo, the group warned, would open the door to government officials making similar pleas about hot-button issues like abortion and the environment.Ms. Vullo, in court filings, has pushed back again the N.R.A.’s allegations that she undermined the First Amendment.The case began in 2017, when the New York Department of Financial Services started investigating an insurance product known as Carry Guard, which provided coverage for various issues arising from the use of a firearm, such as personal injury and criminal defense.The program was brokered, serviced and underwritten by insurance companies and included the N.R.A.’s name, logo and endorsement.The department regulates more than 1,400 companies and more than 1,900 financial institutions. It concluded that Carry Guard violated state insurance law, in part by providing liability coverage for injury from the wrongful use of a firearm. The department entered into consent decrees with the insurance groups and imposed civil penalties.After a mass shooting in 2018, when a former student opened fire at a high school in Parkland, Fla., the department began to re-evaluate “the implications of regulated entities’ relationships with gun-promotion organizations,” according to legal filings for Ms. Vullo.The department issued two memos, one to insurance companies and another to financial institutions, titled “Guidance on Risk Management Relating to the N.R.A. and Similar Gun Promotion Organizations.”These documents encouraged regulated institutions “to review any relationships they have with the N.R.A. or similar gun promotion organizations.”The Vullo case is one of two concerning when government advocacy crosses a constitutional line into coercion.The other, Murthy v. Missouri, involves a push by Republican-led states to curb the Biden administration’s efforts to crack down on what it viewed as misinformation on social media. More

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      Hong Kong to Rule on Democrats in Largest National Security Trial

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      Forty-seven pro-democracy activists face prison time for holding a primary election as Beijing cracks down on even peaceful political opposition.A Hong Kong court will begin issuing verdicts on Thursday in the city’s largest national security trial, as the authorities use sweeping powers imposed by Beijing to quash political dissent in the Chinese territory.The 47 pro-democracy activists and opposition leaders in the trial — including Benny Tai, a former law professor, and Joshua Wong, a protest leader and founder of a student group — face prison sentences, in some cases for perhaps as long as life. Their offense: holding a primary election to improve their chances in citywide polls.Most of the defendants have spent at least the last three years in detention ahead of and during the 118-day trial. On Thursday, judges picked by Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader were set to start handing down verdicts on 16 of them who had pleaded not guilty. Those who are convicted will be sentenced later, along with 31 others who had entered guilty pleas.The expected convictions and the sentences to follow would effectively turn the vanguard of the city’s opposition, a hallmark of its once-vibrant political scene, into a generation of political prisoners. Some are former lawmakers who joined politics after Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule by the British in 1997. Others are activists and legislators who have advocated self-determination for Hong Kong with more confrontational tactics. Several, like Mr. Wong, who rose to fame as a bespectacled teenage activist, were among the students leading large street occupations for the right to vote in 2014.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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      Idaho Drag Performer Wins Over $1.1 Million in Defamation Suit Against Blogger

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      The jury unanimously sided with the performer in a case against a blogger who made false claims that the artist had exposed himself to a crowd at a pride event in 2022.A drag performer in Idaho won more than $1.1 million in damages on Friday in a defamation lawsuit against a blogger who falsely claimed that he had exposed himself to a crowd that included children at an event two years ago.The jury unanimously decided that the blogger, Summer Bushnell, had defamed the artist, Eric Posey, when she claimed in videos and comments online that Mr. Posey exposed his genitalia while dancing onstage during a pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, even though he had not. It awarded Mr. Posey $926,000 in compensatory damages for defamation and another $250,000 in punitive damages, according to his lawyer, Wendy J. Olson.“Can this guy be arrested for exposing his genitals to minors?” Ms. Bushnell wrote in one Facebook post, according to Mr. Posey’s complaint. Mr. Posey claimed that Ms. Bushnell’s online viewership soared as a result of those posts, while he “was exposed to hatred, contempt and ridicule.”In an interview, Ms. Olson said that Ms. Bushnell’s false claims about Mr. Posey had a profound effect on his social life, employment prospects and mental health. “He was called names and racial slurs. He was harassed. He really shut down, emotionally,” she said.Ms. Olson added in a statement that the verdict and the damages sent “the clear message that truth matters, that facts matter, and that you can’t dehumanize and damage someone to suit your own purposes.”In recent years, far-right activists have increasingly targeted drag shows across the country. Protesters and conservative commentators have accused drag performers of targeting children, which has in many cases prompted angry demonstrations, harassment, abuse and threats of violence against drag artists. Some Republican-led states, including Florida and Tennessee, have sought to restrict the performances, though federal judges have not always been receptive to those efforts.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