Characteristically, leading Republicans were taking extremely poorly to the guilty verdict against former President Donald Trump delivered on Thursday from a Manhattan jury in a case that accused him of felony falsifications of business records.
“No, the trial was not rigged. Just as the election was not rigged. Our American institutions are proving resilient against lies and manipulation,” said former federal prosecutor and current legal analyst Barb McQuade on X (the site formerly called Twitter) as those Republican figure-heads spiraled.
This attestation is in direct opposition to Trump’s corner’s reaction.
“This is a dark day for America,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), once a presidential primary opponent to Trump but now an ardent supporter of the former president-turned-convicted felon. “This entire trial has been a sham, and it is nothing more than political persecution.” Nowhere in the post, though it kept going from there, did the Texas Senator offer any precise evidence supporting his assertions.
Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) also rushed to Trump’s defense on Thursday. “Today is a shameful day in American history. Democrats cheered as they convicted the leader of the opposing party on ridiculous charges, predicated on the testimony of a disbarred, convicted felon. This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one,” Johnson said, though “Democrats” weren’t directly responsible for the conviction. That outcome, rather, was the work of a jury.
While there are generally high rates of conviction in some jury trials across the U.S. legal system, that system also includes numerous steps before ever getting to a trial where prosecutions that fail a test of basic arguability under the law get dismantled and/or reversed. Throughout his criminal proceedings here and elsewhere, Trump has had the opportunity to raise numerous defenses, some of which threatened to derail the particular case against him, and he’s already had the opportunity to appeal some of those matters, with further appeal options now available.
