Donald Trump has become America’s first convicted felon president after a New York state court formally sentenced him on January 10 over 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal. However, this is no win for the rule of law. Trump’s constant attempts to delegitimise and pick apart the American justice system have worked.
As a convicted felon, Trump won’t be able to buy a gun in some states, travel to 38 countries including Canada and Japan without a waiver, or do jury duty. Yet Trump was sentenced only to an “unconditional discharge”, meaning he will face no further penalties. Nearly half of people convicted of the same crime in the state of New York would go to prison, and Trump could have faced a fine of up to US$170,000 (£140,000).
Even Trump’s former advisers, Paul Manafort and Steve Bannon, went to prison for the same hush money case that eventually led to the president-elect’s conviction, as did his former fixer Michael Cohen. But Trump’s relationship with the justice system is to use delay tactics such as appeals and public and private pressure campaigns to bend the rules.
