Sexual abuser, fraudster and now criminal. With a CV like that, any worker would have difficulty finding work. Not Donald Trump, who risks becoming the next president of the United States.
The historic verdict fell on Thursday. It only took a day and a half for the 12 members of the jury to unanimously agree and find Donald Trump guilty of having falsified documents in order to hide the payments intended to silence the porn actress Stormy Daniels, all so as not to harm his campaign in 2016.
This conviction is as reassuring as it is frightening for citizens, in the United States and elsewhere. The next American elections will not only be about the choice of one party or another, but about the very future of democracy, which is never certain.
On the one hand, the decision is reassuring because the American justice system has demonstrated that it can see this trial through to the end, despite repeated attacks from Donald Trump. Justice has spectacularly demonstrated that no one is above the law, not even the former President of the United States, which is no small thing.
But the justice system does not escape unscathed, because the speech of Donald Trump, who presented himself as a victim of political persecution, from start to finish, resonates with his supporters.
By turning the guns on his head, Trump is therefore putting justice and all the political and democratic institutions that he has already considerably shaken on trial.
Despite the verdict, nothing is settled. And doubt will continue to poison the debate until the next elections, while many questions remain unanswered.
Will the judge send the former president of the United States to jail?
Theoretically, he faces up to four years in prison per charge. But it’s unlikely he’ll end up behind bars on a first criminal charge… although he has already been convicted in civil court of sexual assault against writer E. Jean Carroll and fraud to obtain cheaper loans .
One thing is certain, the sentence will be handed down on July 11, four days before the Republicans officially announce that Trump will be their candidate for the November 5 elections. And nothing in the U.S. Constitution prevents a criminal from running for president from a prison cell, which fortunately is prohibited in Canada.
But as the former president appeals the case, a process that could last years, a strong smell of doubt will hang in the air throughout the campaign.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump can continue to attack the justice system, repeating on every microphone that “it’s a rigged trial” led by a “corrupt judge” in the pay of President Joe Biden’s team. That even “Mother Teresa would not have resisted such accusations”.
In short, this week’s verdict is far from signing the political death warrant for Donald Trump who has so often proven that nothing sticks to him.
From the moment we heard that recording of Trump bragging about being able to “grab women by the pussy,” you would have thought his chances of being elected president had fallen to zero. Why vote for a man who brags about using his star status to sexually assault women with impunity?
A Teflon candidate, Trump was still elected in 2016.
After hearing the recording of Trump asking a Georgia state official to “find him 11,780 votes,” one would also have imagined that his political career was finally destroyed. Who would still want to vote for a president ready to cheat to overturn the result of the 2020 elections… who he himself swears was stolen?
However, Trump is still ahead in the polls.
And his conviction may not change anything.
It is true that a significant percentage of Republicans (around 15%, according to some polls) said this spring that they would withdraw their support for Donald Trump if he were found criminally guilty.
But in the minds of Americans, the Stormy Daniels case is less serious than the three other criminal trials that focus on the attempted overthrow of the election and the manipulation of national security secrets. However, these trials will certainly not take place before the next elections. And if Trump is elected, they could be canceled or postponed.
Until then, Donald Trump will be able to use his conviction as fuel to fuel the anger of his supporters who rightly called for riots and revenge on social media, after the verdict. For some, “1,000,000 men [armés] must go to Washington and hang everyone1 “.
Anything but reassuring.
Will they storm the Capitol again if Trump loses his elections again, he who systematically refuses to accept his defeats, in court or in politics?
1. Read a Reuters article (in English)