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      DNC targets Trump campaign rally with ‘convicted white-collar crook’ billboard

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      Democrats will target Donald Trump’s first full-scale campaign rally since his criminal trial with a billboard that brands him “a convicted white-collar crook”.The ad, paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is the latest indication that the party is ready to become more aggressive in capitalising on last month’s guilty verdict in New York.“Trump was a disaster for Nevada’s economy,” says the billboard, which will be displayed in Las Vegas, where Trump is due to speak on Sunday. “Now he’s back. A convicted white-collar crook. Coddling billionaires, leaving workers behind.”A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush-money criminal trial, making him the the first former US president to be convicted of a felony. Judge Juan Merchan set a sentencing hearing for 11 July.But Democrats have been unsure how far to go in hammering home the verdict to voters in this year’s presidential election campaign. Some fear it could fuel a narrative that the trial was politically motivated and backfire by generating sympathy for the presumptive Republican nominee.View image in fullscreenHowever, this week there have been signs of a more direct approach. On Monday, at a campaign reception in Greenwich, Connecticut, Joe Biden referred to his opponent as a “convicted felon”.The Las Vegas billboard attempts to tie Trump’s criminal record to his economic one, portraying him as a “white-collar crook” who ripped off Nevada’s working class when he was president. The phrase also has echoes of the “Crooked Hillary” label that proved effective for Trump during the 2016 campaign.Stephanie Justice, a DNC spokesperson, said: “As Donald Trump returns to Nevada this weekend for the first time as a convicted felon, voters will remember this crook left Nevada’s workers out to dry as president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“After promising to take care of Nevada’s middle class, he implemented a tax scam that made the ultra-wealthy and corporations wealthier off the backs of working families, repeatedly attacked unions and sat back as Nevada bled tens of thousands of jobs.”Justice added: “Now he’s promising tax handouts to his billionaire donors instead of putting the interests of working Nevadans first. Nevada voters know that Trump is too corrupt and unfit to serve, and will reject him again in 2024.”The political impact of Trump’s conviction remains uncertain, but a post-verdict analysis of nearly 2,000 interviews with voters who previously participated in New York Times/Siena College surveys found that Trump’s lead over Biden narrowed from three points to just one point. More

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      Hunter Biden gun trial: key takeaways from the first week

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      Federal prosecutors rested their case against Hunter Biden on Friday morning after days of testimony that revealed deeply personal and grim details about his struggles with drug addiction.Hunter Biden, the only surviving son of Joe Biden, faces three felony charges tied to a 2018 firearm purchase while using narcotics. He is accused of making false statements on a gun-purchase form when he said he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs, and then unlawfully possessing the gun for 11 days.Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison, though such a sentence would be highly unusual given that he would be a first-time offender. It is unclear whether the presiding judge, Maryellen Noreika, would give him time behind bars. Hunter Biden also faces a separate federal trial in California on charges of failing to pay $1.4m in taxes.Here are some key takeaways from the trial’s first week’s proceedings:1. Jury selection centered on the toll of the US drug epidemicA jury of 12 – six men and six women– and four alternates was seated from a pool of more than 60 people on Monday. Potential jurors were quizzed individually by Noreika about their knowledge of the case and views on gun ownership to determine whether they could be fair and impartial.Among the questions asked of potential jurors was whether they, or anyone close to them, had struggled with substance abuse or addiction. Many said they did, as stories of loved ones’ battles with addiction unravelled over the course of the day. One said they had a childhood best friend who died from a heroin overdose, one had a daughter who was a recovering addict, and another had a brother addicted to PCP and heroin.Drug addiction plays a central role in the case, as prosecutors have delved into Hunter Biden’s battle with drug use after the death of his older brother, Beau Biden, as they seek to prove that he knowingly lied on a form to buy a Colt Cobra revolver at a Wilmington gun store in October 2018.Hunter Biden has been open about his battle with crack cocaine, and the defense is hoping that the jury will see in him a familiar and sympathetic story reflected in their own lives. A study published this month found that one in three Americans know someone who has died of a drug overdose; nearly 20% said the person they knew who died was a family member or close friend.2. Prosecutors used Hunter Biden’s memoir against himThe jury heard long excerpts from the audiobook of Hunter Biden’s 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, narrated by the president’s son himself, detailing his descent into drug addiction leading up to and after the gun purchase.Hunter Biden and his family listened for more than an hour on Tuesday as a lead prosecutor for the special counsel, Derek Hines, played extracts from the memoir detailing how crack cocaine plunged the president’s son into the “darkest recesses of your soul”, including a story of how he tried to buy drugs from a homeless woman in Franklin Park in Washington DC.Prosecutors pointed to how Hunter Biden detailed his four-year addiction to crack cocaine that would cover the time period when he bought the firearm to argue that he was a high-functioning drug addict who lied to friends and family and ultimately broke the law. “Addiction may not be a choice, but lying and buying a gun is a choice,” Hines said. “Nobody is above the law.”Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, argued that his client did not “knowingly” lie when filling out forms to buy a weapon. Pointing to a two-week rehab visit in August 2018, Lowell suggested that Hunter Biden was not using drugs at the time he bought the gun.3. Witnesses called to the stand included Hunter Biden’s exes and daughterProsecutors said part of their case would come from the testimony of several women from Hunter Biden’s past, including his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, and two girlfriends, Zoe Kestan and Hallie Biden, who is also the widow of Hunter Biden’s brother Beau.Buhle was married to Hunter Biden for nearly 25 years and shares three daughters with him. Buhle testified about her ex-husband’s long battle with addiction, and how his drug use and infidelity fueled the collapse of their marriage.Kestan, who was involved with Hunter Biden around 2017-2018, told jurors about his near-constant crack cocaine use at lavish hotels. “He would want to smoke as soon as he woke up,” she testified, and described meetings with a “scary” drug dealer and hunting for instructions on the internet to cook powder cocaine into crack.Hunter Biden’s daughter, Naomi Biden, gave emotional testimony on Friday as the defense’s witness, telling jurors that she was “proud” to see her father in rehab in 2018. As she left the stand, she stopped to give her father an embrace and was seen wiping her eyes.4. Widow of Beau Biden testified about finding gun in Hunter Biden’s truckThe prosecution’s most important witness, Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law turned girlfriend, Hallie Biden, took to the stand on Thursday. The pair had a brief romantic relationship after Beau Biden, Hallie Biden’s husband and Hunter Biden’s brother, died of brain cancer in May 2015.Hallie Biden is a central part of the prosecution case because she discovered the gun that Hunter Biden had bought and threw it out. The purchase of the Colt revolver by Hunter Biden – and Hallie Biden’s disposal of it – are the fulcrum of the case against him.Hallie Biden told jurors that she “panicked” when she discovered the gun and ammunition in his truck, and described how she put it into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a shopping bag and tossed it into a trash can outside a market near her home. “I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find it and hurt themselves,” she said.Early in her testimony, Hallie Biden testified to using drugs, saying that Hunter Biden introduced her to crack cocaine in 2018. She testified she stopped using drugs in August 2018, but that Hunter Biden continued smoking crack cocaine. “It was a terrible experience that I went through, and I’m embarrassed and ashamed, and I regret that period of my life,” she said.5. Biden family turned out for trialHunter Biden’s family and close friends have attended the trial en masse to show their support, even as their father’s presidential campaign and the White House strive to distance themselves out of fear of handing political grist to Republicans searching for a distracting issue in the wake of Donald Trump’s 34-count conviction last week.The first lady, Jill Biden, was seated in the Delaware courtroom behind her stepson for the first three days of the trial until leaving late on Wednesday to attend a D-day commemoration ceremony in France. Joe Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, flew in from the west coast to take the first lady’s seat in court on Thursday, next to Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen-Biden. Hunter Biden’s sister, Ashley Biden, has appeared in court as have several of his close friends.In contrast, several members of the Trump family steered clear of the New York courthouse during the former president’s hush-money trial. Most notably, Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, and daughter, Ivanka Trump, were conspicuously absent.Joe Biden, who is in France this week for the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings, has indicated he will not pardon his son if he is convicted at his federal gun trial. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. Hunter’s resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us,” Biden said in a statement on Monday. More

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      Joe Biden says he will not pardon son Hunter if convicted in gun trial

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      Joe Biden has indicated that he will not pardon his son Hunter if he is convicted at his federal gun trial, where the prosecution rested its case on Friday in Delaware and Naomi Biden took the stand in defense of her father.When the US president was asked in an interview with ABC News on Thursday if he is prepared to accept whatever outcome arises from Hunter Biden’s trial, he replied: “Yes.”The president is still in France to make a speech on democracy in Normandy on Friday, as part of the events to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day, the allies’ turning point in the war against Nazi Germany in 1944.The first lady, Jill Biden, returned to the US on Thursday after having accompanied her husband in France and arrived in court to support her stepson, as federal prosecutors began wrapping up their gun case against him.Two more witnesses testified on Friday as prosecutors continued their effort to prove to jurors that Hunter Biden lied on a mandatory gun purchase form when he said he wasn’t “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” drugs.Prosecutors called an FBI forensic chemist, Jason Brewer, who tested a residue found on the leather pouch that contained Hunter Biden’s gun. It came back positive for cocaine, though the amount was minimal, he told jurors.A Drug Enforcement Administration agent testified about text messages Hunter Biden sent to alleged dealers.It came towards the end of a week that has been largely dedicated to highlighting the seriousness of his drug problem, which escalated out of control after his elder brother, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.But on Friday afternoon, Hunter Biden’s daughter Naomi testified in her father’s defense that he seemed to respond well to drug treatment in the weeks before he bought a gun. Prosecutors say he obtained it illegally by failing to disclose his addiction on forms applying for a Colt Cobra revolver in 2018 and illegally possessing the weapon for 11 days.Naomi Biden, 30, told the jury she saw her father in California around that time and “he seemed really great”.On cross-examination, she was shown that she had been messaging and calling Hunter Biden and unable to reach him.“I can’t take this,” she texted her father several days after he purchased the gun. “I miss you so much and I just want to hang out.”Hunter Biden has been charged with three felonies: lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days. It would be more usual for such an offense to be settled with a plea deal if the defendant admits it occurred, but an earlier deal for Hunter was unexpectedly thrown out last summer.He was subsequently indicted on the three felony gun charges, which he denies. He also faces a trial scheduled for September on felony charges alleging he failed to pay at least $1.4m in taxes over four years.The court finished its work on Friday afternoon and will resume on Monday when the defense will announce whether Hunter Biden, 54, will testify.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Widow of Beau Biden testifies about finding gun in Hunter Biden’s truck

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      The widow of Hunter Biden’s brother told jurors in his federal gun trial about the moment she found the gun in his truck, describing how she put it into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a shopping bag and tossed it into a trash can outside a market near her home.“I panicked, and I wanted to get rid of them,” she testified about finding the gun and ammunition in the vehicle’s console in October 2018. “I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find it and hurt themselves.”The purchase of the Colt revolver by Hunter Biden – and Hallie Biden’s disposal of it – are the fulcrum of the case against him. Federal prosecutors say the president’s son was in the throes of a drug addiction when he bought the gun. He has been charged with three felonies: lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user, and illegally having the gun for 11 days.Hunter Biden, who has pleaded not guilty, has said the justice department is bending to political pressure from Republicans.Hallie Biden, who had a brief romantic relationship with Hunter after Beau Biden died in 2015, testified that from the time Hunter returned to Delaware from a 2018 trip to California until she threw his gun away, she did not see him using drugs. That time period included the day he bought the weapon.Much of her testimony focused on 23 October 2018 – 11 days after he bought the gun and when she threw it away. Hunter was staying with her and seemed exhausted, she said. Asked by the prosecutor if it appeared that Hunter was using drugs around then, she said: “He could have been.”As Hunter slept in her home, Hallie Biden went to check his car. She said she was hoping to help him get or stay sober, free of both alcohol and cocaine. She said she found the remnants of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia. She also found the gun Hunter purchased in a box with a broken lock that kept it from fully closing. There was ammunition too, she said.Hallie said she considered hiding the gun but thought her kids might find it, so she decided to throw it away.“I realize it was a stupid idea now, but I was panicking,” she said.Hunter Biden watched expressionless from the courtroom during her testimony. She told jurors that she found crack cocaine at her home and saw him using it. She was with him occasionally when he saw drug dealers. Prosecutor Leo Wise asked Hallie about her own 2018 trip to California, where she visited Hunter at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, and asked her whether she was also using drugs.“Yes, I was,” she said.“And who introduced you to it?’”“Hunter did,” Hallie said as Hunter rested his face on his hand and looked down.“It was a terrible experience that I went through, and I’m embarrassed and ashamed, and I regret that period of my life,” she said.Hallie testified she stopped using drugs in August 2018, but that Hunter continued smoking crack cocaine.Much of the prosecution’s case has been dedicated to highlighting the seriousness of his drug addiction and showcasing to jurors moments with ex-girlfriends, infidelity and crack pipes – judgment lapses they believe prove he was actively using when he checked “no” on the form. Prosecutors say the evidence is necessary to show his state of mind when he bought the gun.Surveillance footage played for jurors showed Hallie digging around in the trash can for the gun. It was not there. She asked store officials if someone had taken out the trash.Hallie said Hunter told her to file a police report because the gun was registered in his name. She called the police while she was still at the store.Jurors have also heard from the gun store clerk, who testified about how he walked Hunter Biden through a few options before he settled on the $900 gun. The clerk then watched as the customer filled out the firearms transaction record, a required document for the purchase of a gun, and saw him check off “no” to the question of whether he was “an unlawful user of or addicted to” marijuana, stimulants, narcotics or any other controlled substance.“Everything he bought, he ultimately decided on,” Gordon Cleveland, the clerk, told jurors.Cleveland said he saw Biden sign the form, which includes a warning about the consequences of submitting false information.In his cross-examination Thursday, defense attorney Abbe Lowell pointed out that some of the questions on the form are in the present tense, such as “are you an unlawful user of or addicted to” drugs. He has suggested Hunter Biden did not believe he had an active drug problem.The proceedings are unfolding after the collapse of a plea deal that would have resolved the gun charge and a separate tax case, and spared the Biden family the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election.If convicted, Hunter Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, though first-time offenders do not get anywhere near the maximum, and it is unclear whether the judge would give him time behind bars. More

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      Trump’s gun license to be revoked following conviction, media reports say

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      Donald Trump’s license to carry a gun is expected to be revoked by the New York City police department now that he has been convicted of a felony, according to reports on Wednesday evening.The former president once boasted that he was so popular with the electorate, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” He made the claim in January 2016 during the Iowa caucuses campaign.Trump’s permit to carry a concealed weapon was suspended in April last year after he was indicted on charges of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, according to CNN.Now, the NYPD is preparing to revoke Trump’s license altogether, CNN first reported, followed by NBC, with the latter citing a police spokesperson.Last week Trump was found guilty on 34 charges stemming from a hush-money scheme to influence the 2016 election, including felony falsification of business records.Prosecutors successfully argued that Trump falsely recorded payment he made to Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, to cover fees paid to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence about an affair with Trump.Trump, who is the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 election, will retain some privileges not afforded to all US felons. It appears he will still be able to vote in the November race, because New York – the state where the hush-money trial took place – is one of 23 states where people convicted of a felony can vote as long as they are not incarcerated.Trump is due to be sentenced on 11 July but experts say it is unlikely that he will serve time in jail. Trump has denounced the historic conviction as a “rigged trial”.More details soon … More

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      Minnesota Democrat Dean Phillips calls on New York governor to pardon Trump

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      The outgoing Democratic US representative who failed in his presidential primary challenge against Joe Biden called on the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, to pardon Donald Trump over his criminal conviction for hush-money payments to influence the 2016 election “for the good of the country”.Minnesota representative Dean Phillips, who was the first Democrat to call on fellow party member Henry Cuellar to resign following bribery charges against the Texas representative, urged for the pardon on Friday in a post on X.“Donald Trump is a serial liar, cheater, and philanderer, a six-time declarer of corporate bankruptcy, an instigator of insurrection, and a convicted felon who thrives on portraying himself as a victim,” wrote Phillips, who was first elected to Congress to represent a wealthier suburban area outside Minneapolis in 2019 but gave up seeking re-election to his seat in November to pursue his unsuccessful primary challenge to Biden.Hochul, Phillips added, “should pardon [Trump] for the good of the country”.In another X post on Saturday morning, Phillips doubled down on his call for leniency for the former Republican president.“You think pardoning is stupid? Making him a martyr over a payment to a porn star is stupid. (Election charges are entirely different),” he wrote. Referring to Trump’s claims that he has seen a spike in donations after his conviction, Phillips added: “It’s energizing his base, generating record sums of campaign cash, and will likely result in an electoral boost.”The chances of Hochul pardoning Trump seem slim. The Democratic governor’s statements after Trump’s conviction touted the rule of law, a principle under which “all persons, institutions and entities are accountable” to laws.“Today’s verdict reaffirms that no one is above the law,” Hochul said in a statement after a jury found Trump guilty on Thursday of 34 counts of felony falsification of business records.Hochul also said in a National Public Radio interview “Justice was served” – suggesting potential opposition to a pardon – continuing:“In the state of New York, if you commit a crime, and there’s evidence to demonstrate that you have met the standards of being arrested and brought to a trial and a jury of your peers considers all the evidence, then their verdict must hold.“And that’s exactly how the rule of law has always prevailed in our country. And this is no different. So I just want to make sure everyone knows our rule is no one is above the law.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s campaign claimed on Friday that he had raised $53m following the verdict – breaking GOP records, according to the New York Times. The newspaper notes that Trump’s predominant fundraising entity took in $58m over the second half of 2023, demonstrating the immensity of this windfall.Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who testified that he carried out the hush-money payment in 2016 while Trump successfully ran for the White House, expressed concern about Thursday’s conviction leading to prison time for the former president.Cohen’s remarks seemingly alluded to how Trump, in a separate criminal case pending against him, is charged with improperly retaining classified materials after his presidency and keeping them in areas that weren’t secure.“My concern is in a prison situation … He’s willing to give away the secrets, as I always say, for beggar tuna or a book of stamps, and he will do it because he doesn’t care,” Cohen said on MSNBC’s The Weekend. More

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      Donald Trump had lots of negative opinions about felons. Now he is one.

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      Donald Trump has spent years complaining that American police and the criminal legal system should be “very much tougher”, arguing that some criminals should not be protected by civil liberties, police should rough up suspects and a much wider range of people should face the death penalty for breaking the law.Now that the former president has been convicted on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records, Trump is arguing that the US legal system is out of control. “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” he said on Friday.Here’s a recap of some of Trump’s notable comments about “felons” and “criminals” – and a look at how the convict himself has actually been treated.Trump’s opinion: police officers should rough up suspects as they’re arresting themAddressing an audience of law enforcement officers on Long Island in July 2017, Trump told officers, “Please don’t be too nice”, and he mocked the idea of police making an effort to protect suspects’ heads as they’re put in the back of a police vehicle.“When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over [their head],” Trump said, pantomiming the gesture. “Like: ‘Don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head.’ I said: ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’”How Trump has been treated:On his way to his arraignment in the New York hush-money case last April, Trump was not getting roughed up by officers. He was instead posting angrily on his own social media platform about his feelings about his case. “Heading to Lower Manhattan, the Courthouse,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Seems so SURREAL – WOW, they are going to ARREST ME.” Trump arrived to be fingerprinted and processed via his own eight-car motorcade.Trump also did not get roughed up on his way to jail last August in Fulton county, Georgia, where he faces criminal charges in a separate case related to interference of the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden. Instead, his lawyers reportedly arranged for him to surrender at the Fulton county jail during prime-time cable television viewing hours.View image in fullscreenAfter flying to Atlanta on a private plane, and being processed in an unusually fast 20 minutes, Trump did have to take a mug shot at the jail, which he later said was “not a comfortable feeling – especially when you’ve done nothing wrong”.Trump’s opinion: allowing defendants to be released before their trials is dangerousIn 2010, 16-year-old Khalief Browder was arrested on suspicion of stealing a backpack. The New York teen maintained his innocence, but his family could not afford the $3,000 it cost to bail him out of jail while he awaited trial.Browder ultimately spent three years incarcerated on Rikers Island before facing trial. Suffering from delays, physical abuse and solitary confinement, Browder attempted suicide multiple times. His horrific story would galvanize calls to end cash bail in New York state and nationwide.But Trump has stridently opposed abolishing cash bail. And when New York state embraced cash bail reforms designed to keep more people out of jail while presumed innocent and awaiting trial, Trump criticised the move as dangerous.“So sad to see what is happening in New York where Governor Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio are letting out 900 Criminals some hardened and bad onto the sidewalks of our rapidly declining because of them city,” Trump tweeted in 2019. “The Radical Left Dems are killing our cities.”How Trump has been treated:The former president had enough money to keep himself out of jail (and continue running for a second presidency) while awaiting his criminal trial in Georgia, though a judge there set his bail at $200,000. (Working through bail bond companies, as Trump did, defendants there typically pay about 10% of the total bail amount upfront.)Trump’s opinion: criminals should be denied civil liberty protectionsIn 1989, after a white woman was raped and bludgeoned while jogging in Central Park, five Black and Hispanic teenagers were falsely accused of the crime, and they said they were coerced into confessing their purported guilt during police interrogations. Trump took out full-page ads in multiple newspapers calling for the city to “unshackle” police from “the constant chants of police brutality” and suggesting the juveniles should be executed for the heinous crime.“BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY,” the advertisements read. “Criminals must be told that their CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS.”Yusef Salaam, who was 15 years old at the time, later said that Trump’s advertisements had left the accused boys and their families frightened: “I knew that this famous person calling for us to die was very serious.”View image in fullscreen“I want to hate these muggers and murderers,” Trump had written in the ad. “They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence.”Even after the Central Park Five were completely exonerated, and the city eventually paid them a multimillion-dollar settlement for taking years of their lives through imprisonment, Trump refused to apologize for his high-profile comments – or to consider the men as innocent.“Why did they all sign confessions and how many people did they mugg [sic] that night in the Park?” he tweeted in 2013. “What about their criminal records?”How Trump has been treated:When Trump was arraigned in New York in the hush-money case in April, Salaam – one of the Central Park Five defendants – published his own advertisement on social media.Salaam argued that Trump’s response to his multiple legal cases had been to warn of “potential death and destruction”, and to repeatedly threaten judges, prosecutors, court staff and others – actions that certainly represented, in Trump’s own words, “an attack on our safety”.Even so, Salaam said, he did not believe Trump’s civil liberties should be suspended.“I am putting my faith in the judicial system to seek out the truth,” the wrongly incarcerated man wrote. “I hope that you exercise your civil liberties to the fullest, and that you get what the Exonerated 5 did not get – a presumption of innocence, and a fair trial.”Salaam added that he hoped, if convicted, Trump would endure his punishment with “strength and dignity”, which his teenage cohort did while serving time for a crime the group did not commit.Other commenters have noted that Trump was in a relatively privileged position to even have his New York criminal case go to trial before a jury. More than 90% of felony convictions at both the state and federal levels are the result of plea bargains – not jury trials. Trials are expensive and time-consuming, and those who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer (which is most people) must rely on overburdened public defenders, who are typically struggling with unmanageably large caseloads.Trump’s team of private attorneys is already preparing to appeal his conviction.Trump’s opinion: criminal penalties should be harsher and more violentIn the decades since his newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, Trump has repeatedly endorsed harsher penalties for a wide range of crimes, including threatening 10-year prison terms for anyone vandalizing a statue or other federal monument, suggesting that people who sell illegal drugs should be executed, and praising the president of the Philippines for his approach to drugs, which included the extrajudicial killings of thousands of suspected drug dealers by both police and vigilantes.View image in fullscreenTrump publicly suggested that soldiers could shoot at people at US borders who throw rocks at them, reportedly suggested in private in 2019 that soldiers shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down, and reportedly made a similar comment about shooting protesters in the legs during the height of the social justice demonstrations prompted by a Minneapolis police officer’s murder of George Floyd in 2020.And it wasn’t just talk: the Trump administration ordered federal prosecutors to pursue the heaviest possible sentences, resumed executing prisoners after 17 years of an informal moratorium on the death penalty at the federal level, pulled the justice department back from investigating local police departments for civil rights violations, and blocked small-business owners with criminal records from receiving federal relief during the coronavirus pandemic.“Criminals only understand strength!” the president tweeted in 2020, criticising Portland’s mayor for his insufficiently tough treatment of local protesters demonstrating against police violence.How Trump will be treated:While Trump falsely claimed he is facing “187 years” in prison after his felony convictions this week, the maximum penalty in his case is actually four years. Legal experts say that, as a first-time offender convicted of a nonviolent crime, Trump is unlikely to face any prison time at all. Instead, his punishment is likely to be some combination of fines, probation and community service.Trump’s opinion: repeated critical statements about felons votingTrump made multiple false claims about thousands of felons illegally voting in Georgia and tipping the 2020 election results against him, according to the Washington Post’s database of 30,573 false or misleading claims that he made as president.When a news report revealed that billionaire Michael Bloomberg had raised $16m in 2020 to support a Florida non-profit’s efforts to restore the voting rights of people with felony convictions, Trump denounced the effort as a crime and accused Bloomberg of trying to buy votes for Biden by “bribing ex-prisoners to go out and vote”. Top Republican officials in Florida announced an investigation into whether Bloomberg had violated the law, and they eventually decided he had not.How Trump will be treated:Despite his felony conviction, Trump is likely to be able to vote in November’s presidential election due to voting rights restoration rules in Florida and New York. If difficulties emerge, he could ask Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, who has endorsed him in the 2024 presidential race, for personal assistance restoring his voting rights. Regardless of whether he can legally cast a vote, his felony conviction does not stop him from running for president. More

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      Biden hits back at Trump’s ‘dangerous’ claim hush-money trial was rigged

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      Joe Biden warned on Friday that it was reckless and “dangerous” for anyone to claim Donald Trump’s criminal conviction was the result of a rigged trial, as the former president hit out at the verdict against him and Republicans maligned the integrity of America’s justice system.Donald Trump hit out furiously on Friday morning at the new status of “felon” conferred on him by a New York jury, whose guilty verdict made him the first former US president ever to become a convicted criminal.On Friday afternoon, Biden began a White House talk about the war in Gaza with remarks on criticism from Trump and the right wing about the historic trial that had concluded in New York the day before.The US president said: “It is reckless, it is dangerous, it is irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged, just because they don’t like the verdict. The US justice system has endured for nearly 250 years and is literally a cornerstone of America.”He added that the system and the justice it produced should be respected.“And we should never allow anyone to tear it down, simple as that, that’s America,” Biden said.The war of words came a day after Trump was found guilty of all 34 charges he had faced. On Friday morning, the ex-president painted himself as a victim of injustice in a rambling and often incoherent appearance at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, at which he labelled his opponents “fascists” and blamed his legal plight on Joe Biden.Trump was unanimously convicted by a jury of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.Speaking at Trump Tower in Manhattan to cheers from his supporters, Trump set the tone immediately by declaring himself innocent and revisiting populist election-campaign warnings.He said: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”The event had been billed as a press conference, but Trump took no questions.Instead, he lapsed into a 30-odd-minute monologue that hammered on familiar, inflammatory themes. He criticized the trial and peppered the speech with falsehoods and conspiracy theories that threatened bad things to come if he were not returned to the White House this November, including anti-immigrant rhetoric.Meanwhile, his legal team had already embarked on a counter-offensive to the criminal conviction, aimed at overturning Thursday’s verdict.With the 2024 presidential election campaign propelled deep into uncharted territory, Todd Blanche, Trump’s attorney, went on national television to make a spirited though measured defense of his client, vowing to lodge an appeal.The jury found that Trump falsified documents related to hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, shortly before the 2016 presidential election, to silence her story that she slept with him earlier in his marriage to Melania Trump.Appearing on NBC, Blanche insisted Trump’s defense had not been given “a fair shake” during the trial.“We’re going to appeal and we’re going to win on appeal,” Blanche told NBC Today’s Savannah Guthrie. “That’s the goal. The goal is … to appeal quickly and hopefully be vindicated quickly.”Trump now faces the prospect of rewriting the record books further, if he were to be sent to jail when the judge, Juan Merchan, sentences him on 11 July, four days before the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, where Trump is scheduled to be officially anointed as the party’s presidential nominee for this November’s election.Some analysts predict that the prospect of a custodial sentence has risen because of Trump’s repeated breaking of gag orders during the six-week trial and his condemnation of Merchant as “corrupt and conflicted” after Thursday’s verdict.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Blanche played down that possibility, pointing to Trump’s advanced age and his previous lack of a criminal record.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who led the case against Trump and also was attacked by the former president, has yet to announce whether he will request a prison sentence.Trump pointedly linked his prosecution and the verdict with Biden, whom he labelled “the Manchurian candidate” and “the worst president in our history”, as well as “stupid” and “dishonest”.“They are in total conjunction with the White House, the DoJ, just so you understand, this is all done by Biden and his people,” he said, referring to the legal team that led the prosecution and presumably Merchan, whom he called – among other things – “a tyrant”.The president’s re-election campaign team had commented on Thursday. Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign communications director, said: “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.”Trump and his campaign said that since the verdictthey have raised more than $30m.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said Trump’s false accusations that the case was orchestrated by Biden raised the spectre of further political violence at a time when supreme court rulings are awaited on the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by a mob trying to reverse the last presidential election result.“The real concern here is not that Trump would be able to stir up his base and get loads more votes, because there aren’t loads more votes to get,” he said. “The real question is will Trump continue to feed this sense of persecution, making phony charges that Biden’s orchestrating all this.“That’s not the way our system works. But he has ruined public confidence in our election system, and he’s now ruining public confidence in our judicial system. The man is the worst thing that has happened to American democracy in my lifetime.”Trump trial coverage: read more
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