Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records set off a political firestorm in Washington and beyond, 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 US’s most historic trials.
Republicans unsurprisingly rallied around the former president , reiterating their baseless allegations that the Biden administration had engaged in political persecution of the former US president.
The speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, a rightwing Republican, very quickly issued an astonishing statement for one of the highest lawmakers in Congress, slamming America’s justice system and saying the criminal trial was “purely a political exercise, not a legal one”.
“Today is a shameful day in American history. Democrats cheered as they convicted the leader of the opposing party on ridiculous charges … The weaponization of our justice system has been a hallmark of the Biden administration, and the decision today is further evidence that Democrats will stop at nothing to silence dissent and crush their political opponents,” Johnson said.
Others from the right also attacked the integrity of the US legal system. The New York Young Republican Club said in a statement: “It’s official: we live in a banana republic. Joe Biden has become the first president of the United States to imprison a political opponent.”
In fact, the case was brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, and his office of prosecutors. Bragg is a Democrat, as district attorney is an elected position in the US. But Biden, the White House and the Biden administration would not have been involved in such a prosecution.
Two of the ex-president’s children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, posted on social media that the verdict was “bullshit”.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee called the trial a “witch hunt” and, like many Republicans and Republican groups, issued a fundraising pitch.
Biden himself declined to offer any comment or reaction to the verdict on Thursday. Ian Sams, spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office, said in a statement: “We respect the rule of law, and have no additional comment.”
But the president’s re-election campaign team made it clear that he would continue to prosecute his own case against Trump as the country looks ahead to November.
“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,” said Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign communications director.
He added: “Today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”
Hillary Clinton, who was beaten by Trump in the 2016 presidential election, posted an image on Instagram of a mug with her cartoon outline sipping from a mug and the phrase “turns out she was right about everything” on it.
Adam Schiff, the California Democratic congressman who was deeply involved in Trump’s impeachment and is now running for Senate, posted on X: “Make no mistake, this verdict will only increase Donald Trump’s attempts to discredit the justice system and tear down our democracy. Justice prevailed today. But it is up to us to make sure it continues to prevail.”
Eric Holder, who served as Barack Obama’s attorney general, spoke out briefly late on Thursday night when he received an award for supporting LGBTQ+ rights from the advocacy organization Lambda Legal.
“The rule of law was vindicated today,” he said, adding, “and no one can be above the law.” Although he did not mention Trump or the case, the reference was obvious to the hundreds of lawyers, advocates and their guests at the gala in Manhattan, who cheered and gave Holder a standing ovation.
Elsewhere, many spoke up for one of the prosecution’s star witnesses, Stormy Daniels, a pivotal person in the case as Trump was accused of fraudulently covering up hush-money payments to her to stop her story getting out that she slept with him earlier in his marriage to Melania Trump, which he denies.
Daniels’s husband, Barrett Blade, told CNN on Thursday night that the verdict was a “big weight off her shoulders”, and that she was still digesting the outcome of the trial but felt a little vindicated.
Clark Brewster, a lawyer for Daniels, said that seeing the first criminal conviction of a former president of the US was sad but showed the American justice system worked.
“As sad as it is to see a conviction and I’m truly saddened by it, it was all based on the evidence and based on that statutory law in the state. You have to respect the laws and like I said, no one is above it,” Brewster told News 9 in his home town of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Brewster also told the New York Times of his client: “She always had great faith in our justice system and in the solemn oath jurors take in undertaking their service.”
The New York writer E Jean Carroll, whom Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming, in a long legal battle that is still playing out, simply posted a large image of Daniels and the word “Justice!!”
Justice!! pic.twitter.com/rZvjVmjIkN
— E. Jean Carroll (@ejeancarroll) May 30, 2024
The actor Ellen Barkin posted extensively on X, saying in one post: “I would like to toast Stormy Daniels for being braver than the entire GOP.”
Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican congressman who sat on the bipartisan January 6 panel that conducted the 2022 hearings into the 2021 insurrection, noted that Trump is now a felon.
He posted on X: “Watching all these GOP politicians disparage American citizens and the jury system is disgusting. They are NOT the party of law and order. They are authoritarian weaklings scared of a tiny hands felon.”
