‘The real verdict is going to be November 5’: Trump rails against ‘rigged’ trial
Donald Trump, speaking to the cameras as he left the courtroom, said the “real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people”, referring to the presidential election.
This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5, by the people. They know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here.
The convicted former US president said he is a “very innocent” man who is “fighting for our country” and “fighting for our constitution”.
“Our whole country is being rigged right now,” Trump claimed, blaming the verdict on the Biden administration who he said wanted to “wound or hurt a political opponent”.
We’ll keep fighting. We’ll fight till the end, and we’ll win because our country’s gone to hell.
“This is long from over,” he concluded before leaving.
Key events
Cameras have not been allowed inside the courtroom while proceedings have been under way, but a sketch artist captured scenes as the verdict was read out in Donald Trump’s criminal trial.
Laurie, a woman who had been a regular figure outside the Trump proceedings over the last several weeks, and who declined to give her last name, said:
It’s the right verdict, it’s correct.
I think there was a preponderance of evidence, that was glaring, to convict him … they had witnesses and he didn’t take the stand to refute, they didn’t put him on the stand.
Maybe because he lies all the time and it would be too difficult to rein him in.
Another onlooker, named Karen, was outside across the street from court after the news broke and shared her relief:
This is a sign that there is something salvageable in our version of democracy … nothing is over, he’ll tie it up in the court systems forever but we’ve got to take our celebrations when we can.
Just before the verdict came in this afternoon, the Republican Senate candidate for Maryland, Larry Hogan, posted to X defending the US legal process and calling on Americans to “respect the verdict”.
Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump campaign adviser, responded to Hogan, writing: “You just ended your campaign.”
E Jean Carroll, the writer who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault and won nearly $90m in civil judgments against him, responded to the verdict by posting a photo of Stormy Daniels and the caption:
Justice!!
What is Biden’s next move?
David Smith
Twelve jurors in New York have presented their fellow Americans with a simple question: are you willing to elect a convicted criminal to the White House?
On Thursday, Donald Trump was convicted of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush-money trial, a verdict making him the first former president to be found guilty of felony crimes in America’s near 250-year history.
It was a historic moment in which the US joined other democracies in showing the world it is willing to hold its political leaders to account.
It also represents an earthquake in a presidential election where poll after poll shows Trump to be the marginal favourite over incumbent Joe Biden, despite the president’s efforts to move the needle. If this doesn’t do it, perhaps nothing will.
Sentencing was set for 11 July, just days before the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, where Trump would become the first convicted criminal to be anointed a party presidential nominee. A time traveller visiting from the year 2014 would be staggered.
Yet the one question that transfixed Washington throughout the seven weeks of the often tawdry trial has been: historians care, journalists care and late-night comedians definitely care, but will it matter to voters?
Read the full analysis by the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, here.
Trump to hold press conference tomorrow morning
Donald Trump has posted to his Truth Social site that he will hold a news conference at the Trump Tower at 11am ET tomorrow.
Joan E Greve
Democrats were more muted in their response to the verdict, framing the jurors’ decision as a reflection of the strength of the US justice system.
Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign communications director, said:
In New York today, we saw that 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.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary courts subcommittee, argued the verdict confirmed that Trump was “not fit to lead the greatest nation in the world”.
It’s only in honest courtrooms that the former president has been unable to lie and bully his way out of trouble. Americans trust juries for good reason.
Senator Chris Coons, a Democratic member of the Senate judiciary committee, added:
I commend the jurors for their service and urge all Americans, no matter their party affiliation, to accept and respect the outcome of this trial.
Joan E Greve
Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records set off a political firestorm in Washington on Thursday, with Republicans furiously lambasting the verdict as a miscarriage of justice while Democrats commended New York jurors for rendering a fair judgment in one of the most historic trials in American history.
Republicans unsurprisingly rallied around Trump, reiterating their baseless allegations that the Biden administration had engaged in political persecution of the former US president.
“Today is a shameful day in American history,” said Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker. Congressman Jim Jordan, the pugnacious rightwing Republican chair of the House judiciary committee, similarly bemoaned the verdict as “a travesty of justice”. Some of Trump’s advisers and family members were even more blunt in their assessment of the verdict. “Such bullshit,” Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s eldest son, wrote on X.
A number of Trump’s allies predicted the conviction would be reversed on appeal and would only mobilize Republican voters in the election, while at least one lawmaker suggested the verdict would set a dangerous precedent.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is asked if his office would object to staying Donald Trump’s sentence pending appeal, if Trump’s lawyers asked.
Bragg responds:
I’m going to let our words in court speak for themselves … they’ll raise arguments, we’ll respond.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg says prosecutor Joshua Steinglass has “done his job” and expresses his “enormous gratitude”.
“We have a phenomenal system,” Bragg says.
Twelve everyday New Yorkers listen to the judge’s directions. They followed the evidence … They were careful and attentive. And so I feel deep gratitude to work alongside them, to be a part of this system, and I just want to echo, this is what we’re doing every single day.
Bragg defends changing decision on prosecuting Trump: ‘I did my job’
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is asked for his response to criticism about his decision not to prosecute Donald Trump, and then deciding to.
Bragg says “I did my job”, adding that his job is to “follow the facts and the law without fear or favor….I did my job, we did our job.”
There are many voices out there, he said, but “the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury”.
Bragg doesn’t say whether he will request prison sentence for Trump
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is asked if he will request a prison sentence for Donald Trump.
Bragg says the judge has scheduled a sentencing for 11 July, and that he will speak in court at that time.
Bragg says defendant ‘unlike any other in American history’
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg says “12 everyday jurors” vowed to make a decision based on “the evidence and the law alone”.
Their deliberations led them to a unanimous conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant Donald J Trump is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal a scheme to corrupt the 2016 election.
He adds:
While this defendant might be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today this verdict in the same manner as every other case …
Bragg says he wants to express “deep gratitude” to the NYPD and all those involved in securing the courthouse, ensuring everyone’s safety and making sure the trial continued seamlessly.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg thanks the “phenomenal” prosecution team who he says “embodies the finest traditions” of the office.
They are model public servants and I am proud and humbled to serve side-by-side with them.
Bragg thanks jurors for doing ‘fundamental civic duty’
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg begins the news conference by thanking the jury for its service.
Jurors perform a “fundamental civic duty” and their service is “literally the cornerstone of our judicial system”, he says.
“We should all be thankful” for the “careful attention” that the jury paid over the past several weeks, he says, noting that they reviewed call logs, text messages and emails, heard recordings, and saw checks and invoices, bank statements and calendar appointments.
This type of white-collar prosecution is core to what we do at the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg holds news conference
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, is holding a news conference to discuss the verdict.
Bragg is standing behind a lectern flanked by the prosecution team and other prosecutors in his office.
Bragg starts off by thanking the jurors.
Donald Trump was pictured waving to the crowds and with a raised fist as he returned to Trump Tower after being found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
