Donald Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records in connection with a "hush money" payment made to a porn star in the days before the 2016 election.
Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts.
Sentencing was set for July 11, just days before the Republican convention.
Jonathan Last: "Donald Trump has finally been subjected to the rule of law. We should appreciate this moment and understand that, whatever the outcome, the system worked."
Trump is also guilty of undermining the rule of law. He immediately reacted by saying the verdict was a disgrace, that it was a rigged trial. He attacked the jury and the judge and the rule of law. That should by itself be disqualifying for holding the office of president.
Jonathan Bernstein writes: "It's simple: He constantly, in statement after statement and public action after public action, works to undermine the rule of law. Far more than Richard Nixon ever did in public. Far, far more than other presidents caught in scandal have done.
Yes, many presidents and other elected officials have lashed out in anger in occasional ill-advised remarks. But a full-on assault on the legal system in general? Trump stands alone among presidents, and there's really no close second."
New York Times: "One thing important to keep in mind: the Trump team often has a playbook for spinning news and what will happen, an approach that starts with the candidate himself. They'd predicted a hung jury as a strong possibility, their allies put out word that one juror was making affirming eye contact with a Trump supporter who attended the trial, and so forth."
"In the end, it took this jury less than two full days to convict on all counts. By following this playbook, Trump's team can usually create enough confusion to leave people questioning outcomes. Not so with a jury verdict."
"Michael Fanone, a former police officer who was nearly killed by a mob during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, spoke outside the courthouse during closing arguments in Donald Trump's hush money trial Tuesday, calling Trump 'an authoritarian' with 'a violence fetish,'" NBC News reports.
"Hours later, Fanone's mother was 'swatted' at her home in Virginia."
An interesting note from the New York Times: "Donald Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche hasn't asked Justice Merchan to lift the gag order involving witnesses in the case, even though the portion of the trial involving them has ended. Yet Trump still complains about the gag order constantly."
"Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president." — Biden campaign spokesman Michael Tyler, quoted by the New York Times.
"A guilty verdict for Donald Trump in his New York hush-money trial would be unprecedented in presidential history — but even President Biden's team isn't sure it would matter come November," Axios reports.
"Despite everything — weeks of embarrassing trial headlines for Trump, Biden's big swing state push and his onslaught of ads — the race appears to be stuck, with Trump holding a slight lead in most polls."
"Many Democrats are resigned to the notion that most Americans' opinions of Trump-as-a-person aren't going to change."
Said Democratic strategist Jim Messina: "This was always going to be a close election, and a conviction is not likely to make a huge dent in how most people view Trump."
USA Today: "[T]he Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns are preparing post-verdict strategy plans amid uncertainty over how pivotal voters might react to a guilty verdict or a hung jury."
"Trump has said he is eager to make up for lost time in terms of campaign events and fundraising and has frequently betrayed concern that a guilty verdict could hurt him with undecided voters, who polling shows could back Biden if the Manhattan jury does find the former president guilty."
ABC News: Biden has maintained muted approach toward Trump trial, as jurors deliberate.
"Donald Trump's pollsters have been tracking the impact of his indictments throughout his first trial and, moving to get ahead of events, are arguing that regardless of the verdict in the New York hush-money case, they can spin it in his favor," Politico reports.
"In the campaign's internal polling, two-thirds of respondents say politics played a role in his criminal indictments."
"That is at odds with public polling, which has found that somewhere between a plurality and a majority of Americans believe the case has been handled fairly, with a sharp partisan split. Some 60 percent of voters have said they think the charges are very or somewhat serious. Even 6 percent of Trump voters say they would be less likely to back him if convicted."
"But the Trump campaign's interpretation of its own polling suggests what its strategy might be for dealing with a guilty verdict."
"False reports about the jury instructions in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial have been spreading across right-wing media, leading to threats against the judge overseeing the case," NBC News reports.
"Several conservative news personalities, including some affiliated with Fox News, falsely claimed that Judge Juan Merchan, as one Fox News anchor put it in a viral post on X, 'told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict' Trump."
"That's not true. Merchan instructed the jury on Wednesday that they 'must conclude unanimously that a defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means,' adding that they 'need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were.'"
"Donald Trump boasted about having sex with adult film star Stormy Daniels at the 2006 golf tournament where the two met, a celebrity athlete who played the tournament has said," the Daily Beast reports.
"The athlete also told The Daily Beast that a decade later, in the run-up to the 2016 election, he received anonymous calls from strangers asking what he remembered of the weekend."
Justice Samuel Alito Jr. said on Wednesday that he would not recuse himself from two cases arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol after reports that flags flown over houses he owned appeared to support the "Stop the Steal" movement, the New York Times reports.
Said Alito, in letters to members of Congress who had demanded his recusal: "My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not. She was solely responsible for having flagpoles put up at our residence and our vacation home and has flown a wide variety of flags over the years."
"Donald Trump praised Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for rejecting calls to recuse himself from two pending cases involving the former president or January 6 attack on the Capitol after the conservative justice faced criticism over flags his wife flew over their private residences that called into question judicial ethics," Politico reports.
Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday declined a request to meet with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about their push for Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from upcoming Supreme Court cases dealing with Jan. 6, 2021, and the effort to overturn the 2020 election, The Hill reports.
New York Times: "Supreme Court justices seldom give reasons for their decisions to recuse themselves. Even rarer are explanations for deciding to participate in a case when they have been accused of conflicts of interest."
"Justice Samuel Alito Jr. is an exception. He seems positively eager to explain himself. But whether his explanation has helped or hurt his cause is open to question…"
"Experts in legal ethics said they welcomed Justice Alito's decision to explain himself. But they were not persuaded by the reasoning in his letters."
Elie Mystal: "As the public becomes more aware of the bias Alito has always shown in his written opinions, it strikes me that the deepest irony of Alito's Supreme Court career is that it almost never happened. It was made possible only because people rejected the first choice for his job: Texas litigator Harriet Miers."
"Miers was a George W. Bush crony and sycophant. At the time, people said that Miers should not be elevated to the Supreme Court because she would be a partisan hack who would simply do what Bush and the Republican Party told her to do. I know, because I was one of those people. When Bush was unable to push his friend through the confirmation process, he nominated Alito as the backup. I have come to understand that I owe Harriet Miers an apology."
Josh Marshall: "Alito's rationale for not recusing himself doesn't hold up. His argument is essentially this: My wife is her own person with her own views and ways of expressing herself. I asked her to stop but she refused to do so and I couldn't compel her to do anything. He notes that they co-own the properties in question, so even in the narrow sense of control over a piece of property, he couldn't dictate anything. It was his wife, not him. He did what he could, but couldn't do more. End of story.
This is not how federal ethics guidelines work. They make very clear that the appearance of a conflict of interest or impropriety, for these purposes, counts as much as actual ones. They also make clear that the actions of a spouse count toward creating such appearances even though, certainly in the early 21st century, a judge can't dictate a spouse's actions. The ethics guidelines specifically deal with the spouse issue. And they say "it's my spouse, not me" isn't a defense.
It's worth noting that this isn't about Martha-Ann Alito's behavior. She is entitled to say and act however she wants. She doesn't have to abide by her husband's orders. But in a situation like this, it is incumbent on Alito to say he can't ethically carry out the assignment and recuse himself. It's not Martha-Ann Alito's problem or the American public's problem. It's Sam Alito's problem. He has to recuse himself. Or, to be more precise, maybe there's some explanation that excuses him from recusing himself. But "it was my wife, not me" can't be it.
Whatever else he is, Alito is a smart guy. He knows this. But he said it anyway. That's because no one can force his hand and he doesn't care what anyone thinks. He is not accountable. And he knows it.
We then have an additional but by no means lesser issue which The Bulwark's Jonathan Last elucidates nicely here. Alito has now told multiple versions of his story, each of which have been debunked by subsequent reporting. To put it more baldly, Alito has now repeatedly lied about what happened. The contradictions aren't just about details or things liable to incomplete memory. They're basic issues of order of events which make his explanations of one thing causing another thing impossible.
There's the additional matter that Alito provided his only substantial response about this story to a favored reporter at Fox News. Going to Fox as opposed to CNN or the Times or the news desk at The Wall Street Journal might not appeal to Alito's Democratic critics. But that's not the point. A politician might do this, looking for a sympathetic ear to hear his story. But that's precisely the issue. Justices aren't supposed to be politicians. One needn't believe that judges are disinterested legal umpires, coming to each question with no commitments or ideological agenda or beliefs. But justices are supposed to maintain the trust of reasonable observers that they are operating with a basic integrity and fairness. Lying and rapidly getting caught out in those lies doesn't meet that standard. Nor does offering your explanation to a rabidly partisan news organization. Alito's reaction to this controversy has been sullen, defensive, mendacious and overtly partisan. Those are all total nonstarters for how a justice is supposed to conduct himself or herself. He does it because he's corrupt and he's confident in his impunity.
Oh, and one other thing. He does it because he wants to be sure he is part of this decision because he is personally invested in the outcome. Again, disqualifying in itself."
Derek Thompson: "In a perfect world, the brokenness of America's immigration system would inspire Congress to swiftly pass new legislation convincing voters that the U.S. controls whom we let in and keep out of the country. The basic contours of this grand bargain have been fairly clear for decades. In exchange for expanded opportunities for legal immigration—more visas, more green cards, and targeted policies to increase immigration in technology and science—liberals would agree to stricter enforcement and control at the border. But major immigration reform is stuck. Changing the law requires Congress, and in the latest example of feckless delay, Donald Trump has instructed congressional Republicans to sandbag negotiations with the White House, to avoid giving the Biden administration an election-year win. What we're left with is the perception of immigration chaos, anger about the chaos, and dithering in the face of it."
"If American politicians are ever going to think about immigration policy through the lens of long-term opportunity planning rather than immediate crisis response, they first need to convince the American people that those long-term opportunities exist."
"This case is actually easy to make. Cheaper and more plentiful houses, higher average wages, more jobs, more innovation, more scientific breakthroughs in medicine, and more state government revenue without higher taxes—all while sticking it to our geopolitical adversary, China—require more immigration. Across economics, national security, fiscal sustainability, and geopolitical power, immigration is the opposite of America's worst problem. It holds clear solutions to America's most pressing issues."
Bill Pruitt, a former producer for The Apprentice whose NDA just expired after 20 years, writes in Slate that Donald Trump used the n-word during the production of the show — and there are tapes of him doing it.
"No one involved in The Apprentice—from the production company or the network, to the cast and crew—was involved in a con with malicious intent. It was a TV show, and it was made for entertainment. I still believe that. But we played fast and loose with the facts, particularly regarding Trump, and if you were one of the 28 million who tuned in, chances are you were conned."
"As Trump answers for another of his alleged deception schemes in New York and gears up to try to persuade Americans to elect him again, in part thanks to the myth we created, I can finally tell you what making Trump into what he is today looked like from my side. Most days were revealing. Some still haunt me, two decades later."
Kimberly Welle: "Any day now, the Supreme Court could issue its decision in former President Donald Trump's case seeking immunity from criminal prosecution. While the most direct impact of the decision will be on how free presidents may feel to skirt or break criminal laws, the decision could also indirectly affect one of the other powers granted to U.S. presidents: the pardon power."
"The pardon power is an odd monarchical feature tucked into the Constitution. For the framers, it was mostly a carryover relic — a bonus, almost subsidiary power they decided might be useful from time to time to foster social unity. They didn't bother to put many limits on it, partly because they thought it would only be used thoughtfully and sparingly."
"But the Supreme Court now appears poised to use the fact that there are few constraints on a president's pardon power as a model for expanding the powers of the presidency by granting presidents unprecedented immunity from criminal prosecution."
"A unanimous Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for a National Rifle Association lawsuit against a former New York state official over claims she pressured companies to blacklist it following the deadly 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida," the AP reports.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that "the critical takeaway is that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from wielding their power selectively to punish or suppress speech."
"Two more U.S. officials have resigned over the Gaza war, saying that the Biden administration is not telling the truth about Israeli obstruction of humanitarian assistance to more than two million Palestinians trapped and starving in the tiny coastal strip," The Guardian reports.
"The political party of Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, said it wants to dissolve the parliament in a bid to force early elections and oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," Bloomberg reports.
"The National Unity party said in a statement it is proposing a vote in the Knesset."
"It's unclear if Gantz's party will garner enough support for it to be passed if a vote does go ahead. Netanyahu's Likud party has 64 seats in the 120-seat chamber."
"Economic growth slowed more sharply early this year than initially estimated, as consumers eased up on spending amid rising prices and high interest rates," the New York Times reports.
"U.S. gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 1.3 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was down from 3.4 percent in the final quarter of 2023 and below the 1.6 percent growth rate reported last month in the government's preliminary first-quarter estimate."
"Speaker Mike Johnson is preparing Republicans for quick, large-scale action if they win unified control of government in November, telling Semafor he'll pursue a far-reaching bill aimed at addressing a wide range of issues at once," Semafor reports.
"Johnson said he's been in frequent communication with Donald Trump, discussing the potential for a legacy-defining legislative package early in his presidency."
Said Johnson: "I told him that I believe he can be the most consequential president of the modern era, if we are focused on a policy and agenda-driven administration and Congress — and that's our intention."
"House GOP leaders are telling their members to start brushing up on the Senate's rules as they prepare for a potential legislative sprint in 2025," Semafor reports.
"Republicans hope to push ahead quickly with an expansive agenda if they can win back a trifecta in November, including a renewal of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as well as border and energy legislation. Members of leadership have told reporters they want a major bill done within the first 100 days of a second Trump administration."
"Donald Trump and Elon Musk have discussed a possible advisory role for the Tesla leader should the presumptive Republican nominee reclaim the White House, the latest sign that the once-frosty relationship between the two men has thawed," the Wall Street Journal reports.
"The role hasn't been fully hammered out and might not happen, people familiar with the talks said, but the two men discussed ways to give Musk formal input and influence over policies related to border security and the economy, both issues on which Musk has grown more vocal."
"Musk, along with the billionaire investor Nelson Peltz, has also briefed Trump on a plan they've developed to invest in a data-driven project to prevent voter fraud… Peltz and Musk also told Trump of an influence campaign in elite circles that is already under way, in which Musk and his political allies host gatherings of powerful business leaders across the country and try to convince them not to support President Biden's re-election campaign."
The House Ethics Committee said Wednesday it will conduct its own investigation into Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) following his recent indictment on federal bribery charges, CBS News reports.
"President Joe Biden tore into Donald Trump over his record on race on Wednesday, targeting the former president for his past comments before a crowd of Black voters in Philadelphia," Politico reports.
Said Biden: "What would've happened if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol? I don't think he'd be talking about pardons. This is the same guy who wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd's murder. It's the same guy who still calls the 'Central Park Five' guilty, even though they were exonerated. He's that landlord who denies housing applications because of the color of your skin. He's that guy who won't say Black lives matter and invokes neo-Nazi, Third Reich terms."
He added: "We all remember, Trump is the same guy who unleashed the birtherism lie against Barack."
Reuters: "Now in the third year of full-scale war, Ukraine's top military leaders openly admit that the battlefield situation on the eastern front has deteriorated. Two years of war have sapped Ukraine's ammunition and manpower, while the country's failed counter-offensive last year sank morale."
"Two senior Biden administration officials Wednesday opened the door to allowing Ukraine to use American-donated weapons to strike inside Russia," Politico reports.
"The move, if made, would come as European allies, lawmakers and Ukrainian officials exert pressure on the White House to lift the restrictions, and as Russia has made major advances on the battlefield. It also suggests that President Joe Biden and his team are increasingly worried about Kyiv's ability to fend off Russia's attacks, especially its latest advance in Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv."
"The slayings of at least 30 candidates have provided a chilling backdrop to Mexico's June 2 elections, as criminal gangs seek expanded control in states where cartels already wreak havoc," the Los Angeles Times reports.
"Claudia Sheinbaum's list of accolades is long: She has a Ph.D. and a shared Nobel Peace Prize and was the first woman elected to lead Mexico City, her nation's capital and one of the largest cities in the Western Hemisphere," the New York Times reports.
"Now she has another chance to make history. Ms. Sheinbaum, 61, is the clear front-runner in the Mexican election on Sunday, putting her in position to become the country's first female president."
"But she has an image problem, and she knows it."
"Many Mexicans are wondering: Can she be her own leader? Or is she a pawn of the current president?"
India recorded a temperature of 126 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday in Mungeshpur, a suburb of New Delhi, ABC News reports.
"South Africa's ruling party looks set to fall well short of obtaining a parliamentary majority for the first time since it came to power at the end of apartheid three decades ago, a model developed by a state research agency shows," Bloomberg reports.
"Prosecutors had called their first witness, and Senator Robert Menendez's blame-my-wife strategy in his federal bribery trial already appeared vulnerable," the New York Times reports.
"An FBI agent was testifying about a search of the New Jersey home that Mr. Menendez shares with his wife and the gold bars that were found inside a locked bedroom closet — bribes prosecutors say were paid to the couple in exchange for political favors by the senator."
"Although the closet held women's clothing, the agent said, a man's blue blazer was also found hanging inside, seemingly tying Mr. Menendez to the gold and other alleged bribes."
"A Republican member of the Fulton County elections board refuses to certify primary election results unless given access to detailed voting data, in a move that Democrats worry could jeopardize certification of November's general election results," the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
"Julie Adams, who joined the Fulton County Board of Registration & Elections in February, filed a lawsuit against the board and the county's elections director immediately after the May 21 primary, claiming she's being prevented from performing her board duties. Adams wants access to 'essential election materials and processes' and a ruling that her duties – including certification of election results – are discretionary, not mandatory."
"Republican hard-liners in Texas thought this year's primary elections would be the moment when, after years of trying, they would finally be able to take decisive control of the State Legislature," the New York Times reports.
"They fell just short."
"Though more than a dozen Republican incumbents fell to more conservative challengers, the party's old guard rallied to protect the Texas House speaker, Dade Phelan, from being toppled by an activist endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump."
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