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      Republican governors gather to attack Biden’s climate agenda

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      Republican governors gathered in the fossil-fuel rich state of Louisiana on Monday to rail against the Biden administration’s climate agenda and lay out plans to “unleash American energy”, alarming community advocates and climate experts.“President Biden has done nothing but attack American energy,” said the Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, who led the Wednesday press conference.Landry was joined by by Republican governors from Alaska, Georgia, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Virginia.Hours before the presser, the group sent a joint letter to Biden requesting pro fossil-fuel rules and regulations, including an “end [to] regulatory overreach that unnecessarily restricts domestic energy production”, speeding the approval of federal drilling permits, and ending the pause on new liquefied natural gas export licenses. The letter does not mention that US oil and gas production has soared under President Biden, reaching record levels in 2023.The meeting was held at the Chalmette oil refinery, which a September Environmental Protection Agency report found was out of compliance with federal benzene regulations. In 2020, fires at the facility caused releases of sulphur dioxide, sending foul odors across the region.The event was convened by the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, which, documents show, has accepted funding from the US’s largest fossil-fuel trade organization, the American Petroleum Institute.The group is the policy arm of the corporate-backed Republican Governors Association (RGA), the main campaign arm tasked with electing Republican executives across the country, which has taken funding from Chevron, Exxon, Koch Industries and other fossil-fuel companies, and also has financial links to Leonard Leo, a key figure behind the conservative effort to move the judiciary to the right.At the press conference, the governors said pro-fossil fuel policies would benefit ordinary Americans. Governor Mike Dunleavy of Alaska said: “What we’re talking about here is … developing an energy policy for the single mom with three kids.”And Louisiana’s Landry said that “if the federal government took its foot off of the neck of American energy, we could absolutely lower the costs of everyday goods” – suggesting boosting oil and gas would lower inflation.But experts say boosting extraction in the US would not depress gas prices because fuel prices are set globally.Fossil fuel expansion would also be a “death sentence” for frontline communities worst affected by toxic industrial pollution, said the environmental justice activist Sharon Lavigne.“He is not for human lives,” Lavigne, who founded the local grassroots organization Rise St James, said of Landry.Since taking office earlier this year, Landry has appointed oil, gas and coal executives to Louisiana’s environmental posts, while targeting the state’s climate taskforce for possible elimination as part of a broader reorganization plan. He has repeatedly claimed to be fighting for “energy independence” – a term he repeated on Monday. Yet the US remains net exporter of oil and gas, meaning the nation already produces more energy than it consumes.Jackson Voss, who works on climate policy for the Louisiana-based environmental group Alliance for Affordable Energy, also noted the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries contribute more to toxic air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions than any other industry in Louisiana. The state also brings in less than 10% of its revenue from oil and gas.“Oil and gas benefits a great deal from Louisiana, through subsidies, through deregulation, through its attorney general challenging national policy,” he said. “But in terms of the benefits of getting back to Louisiana? I’d say they’re fairly minimal.” More

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      Stormy Daniels says Trump should be sentenced to jail – as it happened

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      Stormy Daniels said she believes Donald Trump should be jailed and required to do community service after he was convicted last week on 34 felony charges in a hush-money case aimed at influencing the 2016 election.Daniels, in her first interview since the conviction, told the Daily Mirror:
      I think he should be sentenced to jail and some community service — working for the less fortunate or being the volunteer punching bag at a women’s shelter.
      She said she didn’t know what the sentencing could be, but compared Trump to a child that needed a punishment “that not just matches the crime”.Daniels also urged Melania Trump to leave her husband “not because of what he did with me or other women but because he is a convicted felon”. She added:
      It’s been proven he is abusive; he was found liable for sexual assault and tax fraud and is now a criminal.
      Dr Anthony Fauci, the face of the US government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, took questions from a Republican-led congressional committee about the origins of the virus and whether US-funded research in China may have played any role in how it started.Meanwhile, jury selection continues in Hunter Biden’s trial in Wilmington, Delaware, on three firearms-related charges brought by special counsel David Weiss, a Trump appointee. Joe Biden released a statement saying that he has “boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength”. Also:
      Stormy Daniels said she believes Donald Trump should be jailed and urged Melania Trump to leave her husband, in her first interview after Trump was convicted last week on 34 felony charges in a hush-money case aimed at influencing the 2016 election.
      Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order allowing him to temporarily close the southern US border to asylum seekers in a sharp political U-turn aimed at winning support on a key voter concern in a presidential election year.
      Kevin McCarthy, former Republican House speaker, said Americans should accept the results of November’s presidential race amid rising political tensions in the aftermath of Trump’s campaign finance violation conviction.
      Trump called on the supreme court to step in and annul his guilty verdict in a hush-money trial that left him with the unwanted distinction of being the first former US president to be a convicted felon.
      Biden has congratulated Claudia Sheinbaum for her historic win after she was elected Mexico’s first female president on Sunday.
      Bob Menendez, the embattled Democratic senator charged with bribery, will reportedly enter the race today to seek re-election in New Jersey as an independent. Andy Kim, the Democratic congressman running to replace Menendez’s Senate seat, said Menendez “isn’t running for the people of New Jersey, he’s doing it for himself.”
      Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee revealed that she has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and said her treatment may require her to be “occasionally absent” from Capitol Hill.
      Migration at the southern border surged to record numbers at the end of last year. Joe Biden’s expected executive order comes at a moment when the number of migrants crossing from Mexico is down in the past six months, a trend attributed to stronger enforcement on the part of the Mexican authorities but which is not expected to sustain itself.Biden initially rolled back Donald Trump’s restrictive border policies after taking office in January 2021, issuing orders to freeze his predecessor’s border wall construction and reissuing protections set up under the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) scheme originally adopted by the Barack Obama White House.Biden suspended Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy – whereby asylum seekers were forced to wait in Mexico while their US immigration claims were being considered – on the first day of his administration before the homeland security department formally cancelled it months later. The US supreme court subsequently upheld Biden’s approach following a lower court ruling against it.When Trump’s policy was in operation, Biden denounced it, saying:
      This is the first president in the history of the United States of America [under whom] anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. That’s never happened before.
      A recent Associated Press poll showed about two-thirds of voters, including 40% of Democrats, disapproved of Biden’s handling of the southern border.An attempt by the White House to cobble together legislation tightening US border restrictions by tying it to aid to Ukraine and Israel failed earlier this year after Republican lawmakers withdrew support, apparently at the urging of Donald Trump, who did not want Joe Biden to claim credit for resolving an issue he has attempted to make his own.Biden’s executive order will enable US immigration officials to quickly deport migrants who enter the country illegally without processing their asylum claims, according to CBS.Controversially, it will rely on a presidential authority known as 212 (f) which became infamous during Trump’s presidency because of its use to enforce certain immigration restrictions, including travel bans from Muslim countries.Like Trump’s restrictions, Biden’s order is likely to face legal challenges.Here’s more on the executive order that Joe Biden plans to sign to temporarily close the southern US border to asylum seekers.Biden is expected to sign the order as early as Tuesday to seal the border with Mexico to migrants when numbers of asylum claimants rise above a daily threshold of 2,500. Mayors of several US border cities are expected to be present in the White House for Biden’s announcement.Biden’s move marks a sharp political U-turn aimed at winning support on a key voter concern in a presidential election year. The order echoes a similar approach adopted by Donald Trump in 2018 when he was president and reverses Biden’s one-time philosophical opposition to his predecessor’s hostility to migrants.When he was a presidential candidate, Biden denounced Trump’s policy, saying it upended decades of US asylum law. He has been forced to change course as the number of asylum seekers coming through the US-Mexico border has surged during his presidency, with opinion polls consistently showing immigration to be at or near the top of voters’ concerns, ahead of inflation and the economy.Andy Kim, the Democratic congressman running to replace Bob Menendez’s Senate seat said the embattled New Jersey senator “isn’t running for the people of New Jersey, he’s doing it for himself.”As we reported earlier, Menendez is reportedly entering the race as an independent while he is on trial for allegedly accepting bribes.In a statement to the New Jersey Globe, Kim said:
      Americans are fed up with politicians putting their own personal benefit ahead of what’s right for the country. Everyone knows Bob Menendez isn’t running for the people of New Jersey, he’s doing it for himself. It’s beyond time for change, and I’m stepping up to restore integrity back into the U.S. Senate
      Donald Trump’s brazen pitch to 20 fossil-fuel heads for $1bn to aid his presidential campaign in return for promises of lucrative tax and regulatory favors is the “definition of corruption”, a top Democrat investigating the issue has said.“It certainly meets the definition of corruption as the founding fathers would have used the term,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said in an interview about Trump’s audacious $1bn request for big checks to top fossil-fuel executives that took place in April at his Mar-a-Lago club. He added:
      The quid pro quo – so called – is so very evident … I can’t think of anything that matches this either in terms of the size of the bribe requested, or the brazenness of the linkages.
      Whitehouse and his fellow Democrat Ron Wyden have launched a joint inquiry, as chairs of the Senate budget and finance panels respectively, into Trump’s quid-pro-quo-style fundraising, which already seems to have helped spur tens of millions in checks for a Trump Super Pac from oil and gas leaders at a 22 May Houston event.The two senators have written to eight big-oil chief executives and the head of the industry’s lobbying group seeking details about the Mar-a- Lago meeting, as has representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the oversight and accountability committee, who has begun a parallel investigation into the pay-to-play schemes that Trump touted to big oil leaders.Talking of lock him/her/them up, as Stormy Daniels would like the New York judge, Juan Merchan, to do with Donald Trump when he’s sentenced next month…There were chants of “lock him up, lock him up” at the annual convention of Massachusetts Democrats at the weekend, before attendees got down to the official business of nominating Elizabeth Warren to return to Washington as a US Senator for a third six-year term, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported.Warren said of Trump’s conviction: “The legal system worked. Donald Trump and his supporters were on attack against the courts, the judges, the juries, the witnesses. But the process worked as it is supposed to. The jurors listened to the evidence and they found him guilty; now he is a convicted felon.”She added that Trump can “cry, whine and lie, but he is a convicted felon.”Warren is also speaking out on X about reproductive rights.Meanwhile, Keith Boykin, film producer, political commentator and former aid in the Bill Clinton White House decided to fact check Trump on his past urging of the US justice system to lock up Hillary Clinton, and a few other things.How Trump’s deny-everything strategy could hurt him at sentencing is how the Associated Press headlines its latest analysis now that we’re in the sentencing phase following Donald Trump’s criminal conviction last Thursday.The news wire has a piece describing how the former US president and now felon has been on a rant and doesn’t seem any closer to taking responsibility for his actions in falsifying business records to cover up a fraud against the US electorate.The AP writes that he has not uttered any variation of the words that might benefit him most come sentencing time next month: “I’m sorry.”
      The fact, I think, that he has no remorse – quite the opposite, he continues to deny is guilt – is going to hurt him at sentencing. It’s one of the things that the judge can really point to that everybody is aware of — that he just denies this — and can use that as a strong basis for his sentence,” said Jeffrey Cohen, an associate professor at Boston College Law School and a former federal prosecutor in Massachusetts.
      Jeremy Saland, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, weighed in.
      If he turns around and blames the court, attacks prosecutors, decries this as a witch hunt, lies — you should have no misgiving: There will be consequences and there should be consequences.”
      Trump’s constant attacks on the prosecutors, judge and court system and his aggressive trial strategy — outright denying both claims of an extramarital affair by porn actor StormyDaniels and involvement in the subsequent scheme to buy her silence — would make any change of tune at his sentencing seem disingenuous.Stormy Daniels is warming up on X in the wake of her post-Trump-conviction interview calling for him to be jailed.Daniels gets a lot of flak from MAGA world and she chooses to engage with some of it, while also flagging her interview in the Daily Mirror.Daniels, proud porn star.Life choices.A fan from the weekend.Dr Anthony Fauci, the face of the US government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, took questions from a Republican-led congressional committee about the origins of the virus and whether US-funded research in China may have played any role in how it started.Meanwhile, jury selection continues in Hunter Biden’s trial in Wilmington, Delaware, on three firearms-related charges brought by special counsel David Weiss, a Trump appointee. Joe Biden released a statement saying that he has “boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength”. Also:
      Stormy Daniels said she believes Donald Trump should be jailed and urged Melania Trump to leave her husband, in her first interview after Trump was convicted last week on 34 felony charges in a hush-money case aimed at influencing the 2016 election.
      Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order as early as Tuesday allowing him to effectively shut down the US border with Mexico to asylum-seekers crossing illegally when a daily threshold of crossings is exceeded, according to multiple reports.
      Kevin McCarthy, former Republican House speaker, said Americans should accept the results of November’s presidential race amid rising political tensions in the aftermath of Trump’s campaign finance violation conviction.
      Biden has congratulated Claudia Sheinbaum for her historic win after she was elected Mexico’s first female president on Sunday.
      Bob Menendez, the embattled Democratic senator charged with bribery, will reportedly enter the race today to seek re-election in New Jersey as an independent.
      Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee revealed that she has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and said her treatment may require her to be “occasionally absent” from Capitol Hill.
      Stormy Daniels said she believes Donald Trump should be jailed and required to do community service after he was convicted last week on 34 felony charges in a hush-money case aimed at influencing the 2016 election.Daniels, in her first interview since the conviction, told the Daily Mirror:
      I think he should be sentenced to jail and some community service — working for the less fortunate or being the volunteer punching bag at a women’s shelter.
      She said she didn’t know what the sentencing could be, but compared Trump to a child that needed a punishment “that not just matches the crime”.Daniels also urged Melania Trump to leave her husband “not because of what he did with me or other women but because he is a convicted felon”. She added:
      It’s been proven he is abusive; he was found liable for sexual assault and tax fraud and is now a criminal.
      Democratic congressman Robert Garcia followed up his comments in the House hearing with a social media post criticizing Marjorie Taylor Greene for refusing to refer to Anthony Fauci as Dr Fauci.Greene is “totally insane” and a “national embarrassment”, Garcia posted to X. More

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      US cites AI deepfakes as reason to keep Biden recording with Robert Hur secret

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      The US Department of Justice is making a novel legal argument to keep a recording of an interview with Joe Biden from becoming public. In a filing late last week, the bureau cited the risk of AI-generated deepfakes as one of the reasons it refuses to release audio of the president’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The conversation about Biden’s handling of classified documents is a source of heated political contention, with Republicans pushing for release of the recordings and the White House moving to block them.The justice department’s filing, which it released late on Friday night, argues that the recording should not be released on a variety of grounds including privacy interests and executive privilege. One section of the filing, however, is specifically dedicated to the threat of deepfakes and disinformation, stating that there is substantial risk people could maliciously manipulate the audio if it were to be made public.“The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and ‘deep fake’ technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files,” the justice department stated. “If the audio recording is released here, it is easy to foresee that it could be improperly altered, and that the altered file could be passed off as an authentic recording and widely distributed.”The filing presents a novel argument about the threat of AI-generated disinformation from the release of government materials, potentially setting up future legal battles over the balance between transparency and preventing the spread of misinformation.“A malicious actor could slow down the speed of the recording or insert words that President Biden did not say or delete words that he did say,” the filing argues. “That problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is now widely available technology that can be used to create entirely different audio ‘deepfakes’ based on a recording.”Biden’s interview with Hur reignited a longstanding conservative campaign of questioning Biden’s mental faculties and drawing attention to his age, which critics claim make him unfit to be president. While Hur’s report into classified documents found at Biden’s private residence did not result in charges against him, the special counsel’s description of him as an “elderly man with poor memory” became ammunition for Republicans and prompted Biden to defend his mental fitness.Although transcripts of Hur’s interview with Biden are public, conservative groups and House Republicans have taken legal action, filed Freedom of Information Act requests and demanded the release of recorded audio from the conversation as he campaigns against Donald Trump. Biden has asserted executive privilege to prevent the release of the audio, while the latest justice department filing pushes back against many of the conservative claims about the recording.The justice department’s filing argues that releasing the recording would create increased public awareness that audio of the interview is circulating, making it more believable when people encounter doctored versions of it.A number of politicians have become the target of deepfakes created in attempts to swing political opinion, including Biden. A robocall earlier this year that mimicked Biden’s voice and told people not to vote in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary was sent to thousands of people. The political consultant allegedly behind the disinformation campaign is now facing criminal charges and a potential $6m fine. More

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      Biden to sign executive order to close southern US border to asylum seekers

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      Joe Biden will this week sign an executive order to temporarily close the southern US border to asylum seekers in a sharp political U-turn aimed at winning support on a key voter concern in a presidential election year.The US president is expected to sign the order as early as Tuesday to seal the border with Mexico to migrants when numbers of asylum claimants rise above a daily threshold of 2,500.Mayors of several US border cities are expected to be present in the White House for Biden’s announcement.Biden’s move echoes a similar approach adopted by Donald Trump in 2018 when he was president and reverses his one-time philosophical opposition to his predecessor’s hostility to migrants. When he was a presidential candidate, Biden denounced Trump’s policy, saying it upended decades of US asylum law.He has been forced to change course as the number of asylum seekers coming through the US-Mexico border has surged during his presidency, with opinion polls consistently showing immigration to be at or near the top of voters’ concerns, ahead of inflation and the economy.An attempt by the White House to cobble together legislation tightening border restrictions by tying it to aid to Ukraine and Israel failed earlier this year after Republican lawmakers withdrew support, apparently at the urging of Trump, who did not want Biden to claim credit for resolving an issue he has attempted to make his own.According to CBS, which broke the story, Biden’s executive order will enable US immigration officials to quickly deport migrants who enter the country illegally without processing their asylum claims.Controversially, it will rely on a presidential authority known as 212 (f) which became infamous during Trump’s presidency because of its use to enforce certain immigration restrictions, including travel bans from Muslim countries.Like Trump’s restrictions, Biden’s order is likely to face legal challenges.Migration at the southern border surged to record numbers at the end of last year. Buthe order comes at a moment when the number of migrants crossing from Mexico is down in the past six months, a trend attributed to stronger enforcement on the part of the Mexican authorities but which is not expected to sustain itself.An estimated 179,000 “border encounters” were recorded in April, according to US Customs and Border Protection figures, compared with a record high of 302,000 last December. More than 3,500 migrants were said to have crossed various points along the 2,000-mile border illegally on Sunday alone.Biden initially rolled back Trump’s restrictive border policies after taking office in January 2021, issuing orders to freeze his predecessor’s border wall construction and reissuing protections set up under the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) scheme originally adopted by the Barack Obama White House.Biden suspended Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy – whereby asylum seekers were forced to wait in Mexico while their US immigration claims were being considered – on the first day of his administration before the homeland security department formally cancelled it months later. The US supreme court subsequently upheld Biden’s approach following a lower court ruling against it.When Trump’s policy was in operation, Biden denounced it, saying: “This is the first president in the history of the United States of America [under whom] anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. That’s never happened before.”A recent Associated Press poll showed about two-thirds of voters, including 40% of Democrats, disapproved of Biden’s handling of the southern border. More

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      Crowing about the Trump verdict will only hurt Biden – populists thrive on claims of persecution | Simon Jenkins

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      “Guilty”, screamed the one-word headline in the New York Times last week, dripping with undisguised glee. Howls of contempt descended on Donald Trump as he slunk from his Manhattan courtroom to cries of “felon”. He now awaits sentence and three more criminal trials, two of them over his response to his 2020 election defeat.Ecstasy is a dangerous substance in politics. Trump’s enemies should be careful what they wish for. Within 24 hours of his leaving court, $39m reportedly poured into his campaign coffers. Though some Republicans seemed hesitant, an Ipsos poll for Reuters showed voting intention tilting in his favour. As with his victory in 2016, the more the political establishment damns him, the more those outside its reach are drawn to him.To many people in the US and around the world, the prospect of Trump’s return is the reduction to absurdity of the populist surge experienced by many western democracies. His still narrow lead in several polls has been enough to scare nervous Republicans to back him. To the House speaker, Mike Johnson, his New York conviction was “a shameful day in American history … a purely political exercise.” The same was true of the rightwing media. Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post replied to the Times’s “Guilty” headline with another single word, “Injustice”.To many jurists, the fact that Trump’s prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, was an elected Democrat who reportedly vowed to “get Trump” did indeed give the trial a political spin. This gives the former president a decent chance of victory on appeal next year. If that followed a “stolen” Biden win, there would be grounds for alarm. As Trump said at the weekend of his possible house arrest: “I am not sure the public would stand for it … There’s a breaking point.” The US Capitol attack on 6 January 2021 showed what that meant.As for Trump’s next trials, never was “the law’s delay” so clearly justice denied. The US judicial offices are highly politicised. It was Trump’s packing of the supreme court when in office that has helped stall any progress against him at the federal level. It has left him to dismiss local state prosecutors as political enemies. This in turn has added to his appeal among the “left-behind Americans” of populist folklore, those ignored by what he calls “the swamp”, the liberal elites of the nation’s east and west coasts.This gulf between “insiders and outsiders”, cities and provinces, cannot be ignored. It is evident in all western democracies. It underlay the Brexit referendum in Britain and is seen in support for Trump from Reform’s Nigel Farage and from Boris Johnson, who called his trial a “machine-gun, mob-style hit job”. Populists clearly stick together, however outrageous the cause.This means that for those who view another Trump presidency as a disaster, handling the next six months needs caution rather than cheering. Trump’s appeal to his supporters lies not in his affection for them but in the hatred he expresses for his enemies. It is why his support has been rising among non-graduates, the poor, African Americans and even Latinos. Joe Biden’s strength lies rather with the better educated and the better off. Old divisions between Republican and Democrat are meaningless in the age of populism.The answer cannot be to reason with Trumpism, which is more a stance than a programme. The television debate with Biden will be mere gladiatorial theatre. The strategy can only be to lower the temperature, to minimise publicity for Trump’s vapid accusations and bolster the virtues of Biden’s presidency and his increasingly uncertain leadership. Elections to the White House reflect the constitution’s balance of sovereignty between Washington and the states. They are when the states matter, in particular the dozen or so swing states that regularly change sides, where the contest is won or lost. As for the outside world, it normally cares about who becomes the US president. This time it cares about who does not.
      Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist More

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      The Observer view on Donald Trump: utterly unfit for office, he should quit the race for the White House

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      It was the moment America, or at least America’s politicians and media, had been waiting for. It was the day justice finally caught up with Donald Trump. The former president’s manipulation of the 2016 election, by hushing up a sex scandal that threatened his chances, and his attempts to discredit a criminal justice system intent on punishing him, was famously thwarted. It was an all-time presidential and judicial first, a historic result that transformed Teflon Don into Felon Don, thanks to a jury of 12 ordinary men and women and a brave prosecutor, Alvin Bragg.Looked at another way, however, last week’s much anticipated dramatic denouement of the criminal trial of the New York playboy, billionaire and presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate may turn out to be less pivotal than anticipated. According to the US networks, most Americans tuned out weeks ago, not least because cameras were barred from the Manhattan courtroom. One not untypical public survey found that 67% of respondents said a conviction would make no difference to how they voted this autumn. The 34 guilty verdicts were an overnight sensation. But they may not significantly shift the political dial.The consensus view, around which most Republican and Democrat politicians, pundits and commentators swiftly coalesced, is that Trump’s disgrace will dog him for the remainder of the 2024 campaign – but will not doom him. It may even galvanise support. Evidence of the latter phenomenon came quickly. His campaign said it had raised a record $53m (£41.6m) in 24 hours after the verdict. There was a time, not long ago, when a criminal conviction would have destroyed a candidate’s chances. That time has passed.How can this be? It is, objectively, an extraordinary state of affairs. One explanation may be that twice-impeached Trump, possibly the most scandal-prone US president in history, has exhausted Americans’ capacity to be shocked. So egregious has been his behaviour, on so many occasions over the years, that no one is really surprised any more. Or perhaps this apathy and passivity are less to do with Trump and more with a broader public disillusionment with politics and politicians. Whatever the cause, it appears, regrettably, that Trump will ride out this storm and keep his bid for a second presidential term on track.Another key moment looms in early July, when Judge Juan Merchan, the target of his repeated contemptuous taunts, will decide how heavy a sentence to impose. Trump may escape jail given his age, 77, and the absence of prior convictions, although he could receive up to four years. A fine and probation look more likely. In any case, Trump has already signalled his intention to appeal. That process will almost certainly extend beyond the 5 November election. The three other major criminal trials Trump faces – over the alleged theft of classified documents, his role in the 6 January 2021 coup attempt, and electoral interference in Georgia – have all been delayed past polling day. Bottom line: if he defeats Biden, Trump will probably evade punishment entirely.If this prospect seems strange, even scandalous, then consider another big anomaly exposed by this trial. No previous US president, serving or retired, has been found guilty of a crime. Yet the hallowed US constitution makes no objection to Trump running for, and holding, the country’s highest office, even from inside a prison. This is another reason, along with the antiquated electoral college system and the politicisation of a rogue supreme court, to pursue urgent constitutional reform.Positive outcomes were not entirely drowned out by Trump’s unhinged post-trial ravings about a “rigged” process and the supposed threat posed by “millions” of terrorists and mentally unwell migrants seeking to “take over our country”. Most important is the fact that, in the end, Trump was forced to face justice like any other citizen. He is not above the law. He could not hide behind bogus claims of presidential immunity. In this instance, impunity and unaccountability, the twin curses of modern governance, did not prevail.The noisy theatrics, whingeing claims of victimisation and mendacious hype that characterised Trump’s trial performance have paradoxically served to make Biden look more stable, more sensible and certainly more statesmanlike. On Memorial Day, the president delivered a dignified speech at Arlington National Cemetery, ahead of this week’s anniversary of the 1944 D-day landings. While he was paying solemn tribute to America’s war dead, Trump was viciously ranting about “human scum” trying to “destroy” the country.Does Trump have any idea how bad this crude conduct makes him look, how diminished, mean and twisted? It’s a stark contrast with Biden, 81, always dapper and upbeat, if somewhat shaky on his feet. It is hard to imagine a less appealing pitch to the young first-time voters, independents and minorities who, pollsters say, could make all the difference in November’s half-dozen crucial swing states.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe margin of victory is predicted to be wafer thin again this autumn. Trump holds a tiny national lead, and has the edge in most of the battlegrounds. There is evidently all to play for. And while Biden remains a problematic candidate, Trump, on the forensic evidence of recent days, has proved again that he is a truly terrible one – and an unrepentant criminal to boot. He is unfit for office. He should stand down.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk More

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      The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s conviction: a criminal unfit to stand or serve | Editorial

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      Guilty. The New York jury’s unanimous verdicts on 34 counts mean that Donald Trump is not only the first sitting or former US president to be prosecuted in a criminal trial, but the first to be convicted.Trump was found to have falsified business records to hide $130,000 of hush money paid to cover up a sex scandal he feared might hinder his run in 2016. Before his entry into politics, it would have been taken for granted that such charges would kill a campaign. Yet Trump is running for the White House as a convicted criminal. If he is jailed when he is sentenced in July – which most experts think unlikely – it is assumed that he would continue. If anything, the prospect of such a sentence spurs him on.It is grim testament to his character that in some ways the most startling aspect of testimony in the five‑week trial was about his fear of the electoral impact that the adult film star Stormy Daniels’ allegation of extramarital sex might have. It was a reminder of how far he has lowered the political bar. Eight years on, critics have been forced to acknowledge that no scandal or shame seems to weaken the attachment of his core voters or the craven bond of Republican politicians. Each fresh revelation has seemed to almost reinforce his aura of impregnability to political controversy.This trial too was in some ways grist to his mill, raising funds and firing up supporters. Some said they were more likely to vote for him if he were convicted. He continues to play the martyr: “Our whole country is being rigged right now,” he lied to supporters. He says he will appeal against his “scam” conviction.Yet no one doubts that his anger, and his glum post-verdict demeanour, were real. Polling suggested that some supporters would think twice if there were a conviction. The hearings have cost him time and focus ahead of a closely contested election. With the outcome hanging on turnout and a small number of waverers in a handful of battleground states this November, even marginal effects could prove significant. Joe Biden now has an opportunity – albeit one which must be used carefully, and which will not on its own erase shortcomings within the Democratic campaign.The three criminal cases Trump still faces – over the alleged mishandling of classified documents and attempts to overturn the 2020 election – are graver by far, but are not expected to be heard before election day. While this may not have been the case that his opponents wanted, it has proved that he breaks the law for political advantage. Failing to pursue it for fear that he would exploit the charges would have meant tacitly caving in to his bullyboy tactics.Having wreaked devastation upon US politics, Trump seeks to undermine the rule of law too. He has assailed the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the legal system itself. He broke a gag order 10 times. The damage he has caused must not be underestimated or overlooked. But the judicial process has held.While so many powerful Republican politicians have quailed and fallen into line, 12 ordinary men and women have held him accountable. Their verdict has confirmed once more that this man is unfit to run the country. Their peers should take heed when they issue their own verdict at the ballot box in November. More