How did Donald Trump's historic guilty verdict unfold? | BBC News

we start in the US where Donald Trump has been found guilty on all counts in his hush money trial this makes him the first former US president to be convicted of criminal charges and the first major Party candidate to run for office as a convicted felon he's called The Verdict a disgrace Mr Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records to conceal a sex scandal involving the former porn star stormmy Daniels The Verdict handed down just a few hours ago comes after 2 days of deliberations the former US president could face up to four years in prison and a $5,000 fine for each count the trial officially began on April the 15th after a lengthy jury selection process then over the course of more than six weeks testimony from Mr Trump's former business partners including longtime lawyer Michael Cohen and his accuser Stormy Daniels were heard 12 New York jurors deliberated for two days to reach Thursday's verdict in which they found him guilty on all 34 felony charges Mr Trump will return to the Manhattan courtroom on July the 11th to be sentenced here's our North America correspondent John sunworth in a nearby par his opponent celebrated Trump is guilty while inside the court the former president was walking into history are you wor about going to jail as the first ever to be convicted of a crime this was a disgrace this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt there a rig trial of disgrace but it was a jury who convicted him on the evidence 34 counts of falsifying business records to disguise hush money payments to the porn star stormmy Daniels for the purpose prosecutors said of keeping her claim that they had had sex from the American public just ahead of the 2016 election the verdict brought only Gloom to Mr Trump's supporters who were left in those claims of political persecution and they're afraid of a much more popular opponent which they know will defeat them but this was a decision made by 12 ordinary New Yorkers your fellow citizens there's nothing political about that is there I'm not going to say that the the jury was tainted but who knows who knows so despite the sense of despondency amongst the Trump supporters is all pretty good natured here although as you can see there's a pretty large police presence just in case the bigger question though is what the reaction is going to be longer term with America now in Uncharted Territory you know you can't even see the back there's so many people here what effect will it have on his election chances will it put those crucial undecided voters off or Draw others to him and what about the impact of his attacks on America's institutions already intensifying in the wake of the verdict the man who brought the case insisted the result was a sign the justice system is working and while this defendant maybe unlike any other in American history we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom Doors by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor Millions will agree with him and millions won't sentencing will be in early July Mr Trump is unlikely legal experts say to go to jail but either way one half of a divided country now has a convicted criminal as its candidate John sorth BBC News New York Alia we heard from new VES Wall Street criminal defense attorney and former New York prosecutor he told us more about what happens now well between now and July 11th his team will get to present a written submission regarding sentencing and it's basically called a mitigation packet so they're going to be arguing that the judge doesn't sentence him to any prison time that's the argument they'll put forth they'll put forth letters in support and the prosecution at some point and maybe they'll do it the day before will announce what kind of sentence they're seeking what their recommendation to the judges and my feeling or my strong feeling is that they will be seeking some sort of jail sentence perhaps the Max and so they you have these dueling written submissions and then on the day of sentencing the prosecutor one prosecutor will get to speak the one attorney for Donald Trump will get to speak and Mr Trump if he chooses will also get to speak those the only three people who are legally allowed to speak the judge could allow others but it's unlikely and then the judge will pronounce sentence and it's my view and I've said this I've been I was on your show that in my view this judge is going to give him jail time the concerns that your correspondent brought up about security risks that's a city issue the the judge who is a state court judge doesn't really care about that and in fact I think he going to be one who wants to go down as the person who put Donald Trump in jail and also from the District Attorney's point of view da Alvin brg they want to say they took a hard line and so all these factors weigh in for very strong possibility that he's going to see the inside of Riker's Island one of the most notorious prisons in the world more this let's speak to Dr Thomas gift associate professor of political science at University College London and director of the US of the center on us politics thanks for being with us just to pick up on that last point there do you do you really think this is going to end up as as jail time for former president Trump good morning thanks so much for having me I do not I certainly don't think it's going to end in jail time before the election because most likely Trump is going to appeal and it's going to progress past November uh but even when the ultimate sentence is delivered given that Trump hasn't committed a crime before or he has no prior criminal record I think much more likely to see something like uh probation I think at the maximum uh and so I I think it's very unlikely that the the judge would want to be the one actually who was responsible for putting Trump Behind Bars and let's turn to the political implications what does it mean for the the Trump candidacy will it be independent and undecided voters who they will affect the most this this verdict well I think it does two things first of all it definitely energizes the far left and it galvanizes the far right but of course those are the voters who are already following politics closely are decided about who they're going to vote for will certainly turn out to the polls and so we really are just talking about a relatively small fraction I think of a few percentage points in the middle who this could tip in One Direction or the other most of the polling that we saw before the actual verdict came down was that two to three percentage points of of Voters would be more likely to vote for Biden uh than Trump but of course this is such a wild card such a unique situation and given how all of the media sort of frames this and and poses it I think that that could have a big impact ultimately I'm not sure if a whole lot of Voters will change their mind especially it's still uh May by the time we get to November as crazy as it sounds this might just feel like uh kind of the distant past and what about the the broader question of um how we've heard the reaction from from Mr Trump saying that it's the verdict was a disgrace presumably that's an attempt to delegitimize the the court system how much of an impact does that have on the state of the US well certainly this is just one more example of trump accusing Democrats and the sitting government of weaponizing the Judiciary against him and he's framing this uh very much as not just a hit against him but a hit against all of his supporters uh throughout the country r large I do think that Trump has been very effective so far at leveraging this brand of grievance politics uh to his Advantage it's one reason why we have seen some increases for Trump in the polls of late but more broadly I do think that it uh SWS distrust and a sense of a lack of legitimacy at least among 50% or so of the electorate So to that extent you know it's going to entrench polarization and really tear at the fabric of American democracy

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Length: 9min 2sec (542 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024