Today marks a historic day for American history, as for the first time ever a former president has been found guilty, by a jury of his peers, of a felony or in the case of Donald John Trump, 34 of them. All of them that he was charged with.
Throughout the mainstream media, the trial was referred to as a “hush money trial” but was in fact not. In actuality it was not about hush money payments at, all as it was about falsifying business records related to his campaign. Paying people “hush money” to not reveal something is not necessarily illegal. What is the illegal part of this instance is falsifying records about what the money was used for. In this instance, it was found that he used his money, via his “fixer,” then attorney, Michael Cohen, to pay porn star Stormy Daniels to not reveal a brief affair they’d had just after his wife, Melania, had given birth to Donald Trump’s baby. This was at a time when the campaign was particularly vulnerable due to the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump suggested he could grab women by their private genitalia because he was famous.
Although many suggested in the media that conviction of Trump hinged on the statements of Michael Cohen, who himself had been incarcerated for crimes, and whose testimony was cast as unreliable, more credence was given to Trump’s handwritten documents, and the words of National Enquirer owner, David Pecker, who’d bought Stormy Daniel’s story but chose not to publish it, in what they called “catch and kill,” where the tabloid owner sought stories that were bad for Donald Trump and intentionally chose not to publish them.
While Trump has been found guilty, he will definitely appeal the charges and will continue running for president. Sentencing has not been announced yet.
The former president called it a “disgrace,” that it was all rigged, just as he said about losing some of his primary contests, the election of 2020, and now this.
