Donald Trump has become the first former US president to be convicted on criminal charges.
The real estate mogul, former commander-in-chief and presumptive Republican 2024 presidential nominee was found guilty on all counts Thursday by a jury of 12 Manhattanites in the unprecedented criminal prosecution of an ex-president.
When asked to read the verdict on count one of the indictment, the foreman calmly stood up and said, “guilty.”
Donald Trump was found guilty on all counts on Thursday, May 30, 2024, in a historic verdict as part of the hush money case.
A jury found that the 77-year-old former president doctored business records to hide that he had porn star Stormy Daniels paid $130,000 in the lead-up to the 2016 election to keep her quiet about her allegations that she slept with him one time in 2006.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced on the morning of July 11 and Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said Trump can remain free without bail until that date.
But, here you can read more about what happens next following the guilty verdict and what Trump potentially faces.
He then repeated the word “guilty” 33 more times when asked to read the jury’s verdict on the other counts.
As the verdict was read, Trump slouched in his seat, shoulders forward. He titled his head, looking at each juror while his fate was read out.
Follow the latest on Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in his hush money trial
He’s scheduled to be sentenced on the morning of July 11 and Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said Trump can remain free without bail until that date.
After Trump repeated his usual refrain blaming President Biden for the “rigged” trial.
“The real verdict will be Nov. 5 by the people,” Trump said glumly. “I’m an innocent man.”
“I’m fighting for our country, I’m fighting for our constitution,” Trump said. “We’re a nation in decline.”
He was accused of illegally trying to cover up a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels — part of a scheme to stifle sex scandals that threatened to derail his 2016 campaign.
The bombshell verdict capped a dramatic seven-week trial in Manhattan Supreme Court in which the jurors, including people who both praised and criticized the polarizing politician, heard X-rated testimony from Daniels herself.
The panelists found that Trump, 77, falsified business records throughout 2017 by lying that he was paying his then-lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen for phony “legal services” when he was actually reimbursing him for the hush money that kept Daniels from speaking out about having sex with Trump inside a Lake Tahoe hotel room in 2006.
Cohen — a convicted perjurer who testified that he lied under oath in the past to “protect” Trump — was Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s star witness against his former boss.
Trump’s lawyers seized on Cohen’s history of lies — and revealed that he’d once stolen $60,000 from the ex-president’s business — as they tried to paint him as a serial fabulist hellbent on seeing his former boss behind bars.
But other evidence suggested that Cohen, 57, was telling the truth when he claimed that Trump — who bragged in book excerpts shown to jurors about micro-managing every detail of his business — directed him to buy Daniels’ silence.
“He said, ‘Absolutely. Do it. Take care of it.’’’ Cohen told the jury.
Jurors heard Cohen on tape discussing Trump’s knowledge of the Daniels payoff with the porn star’s lawyer.
In another recording played at trial, Trump appeared aware of a plan to pay $150,000 to work with the National Enquirer to kill a story from another alleged mistress, Playboy model Karen McDougal, before the election.
“What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump told Cohen on the recording.
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Trump was indicted in March 2023 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, each carrying a possible penalty of up to four years in prison. But he could also be sentenced to probation.
Trump denied the charges and, in daily press conferences from the courthouse hallway, blasted the case as what he called a politically motivated plot to remove him from the campaign trail.
He declined to take the stand to testify in his own defense, but jurors are not allowed to take that decision into account during deliberations.
The case marked the first time in US history that a former president stood trial on criminal charges.
