Ex-President Donald Trump, currently the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee for this year’s election, should be disqualified from that race for president by his recent felony conviction in New York City, journalist Brian Beutler insists.
Trump was found guilty by a jury on all counts in a case accusing him of the felony falsification of business records connected to hush money from before the 2016 presidential election for a woman named Stormy Daniels, who allegedly had a sexual encounter with Trump some years before his successful bid for president. At times, the Trump corner has batted around the idea of Daniels somehow victimizing the ex-president by harboring the story, which Trump and loyal allies consistently deny.
Daniels herself testified during the recently concluded trial, and there are apparent indications of that alleged encounter available through sources other than just Daniels personally.
The case didn’t directly hinge on the legitimacy of Daniels’ claims, with prosecutors instead alleging that Trump concealed the true purpose of payments that, in reality, were repaying former ally Michael Cohen after he provided Daniels with the funds. Prosecutors also alleged that Trump perpetrated these acts to conceal additional criminal activity, contending there was a covert ambition to impact the 2016 race in a manner favorable to Trump’s campaign.
“The public has never experienced this, and so has no way of gauging how “felony conviction” rates against various other candidate merits and demerits,” Beutler wrote on social media, responding critically to a clip in which President Joe Biden defers to voters on a question of grappling with Trump’s conviction in the context of the election. “He (or Kamala Harris) should lay plainly out why Trump’s conviction should disqualify him.”
Though arguments for Trump’s exit have also emerged elsewhere, there’s characteristically no indication from the ex-president or his team of any intention of leaving the race.
