Donald Trump found guilty on all counts

The verdict is in. After two days of deliberation, a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty of accounting falsification on Thursday, May 30, at the end of the trial in the Stormy Daniels affair. In detail, the jurors considered that the former head of state was guilty of the 34 charges brought against him. His sentence will be pronounced by Judge Juan Merchan on July 11. The billionaire, the first American president to be criminally prosecuted, can appeal this decision.

After the jury’s verdict was read, Judge Juan Merchan thanked the citizens selected for this historic trial. “You gave this matter the attention it deserved.”, commented the magistrate. At the end of the hearing, Donald Trump denounced a procedure “rigged” sponsored by “the administration [du président] Biden”. Before declaring that “the real verdict” will be November 5, presidential election day.

The Republican candidate was accused of having disguised the accounts of his real estate group in order to conceal a payment of 130,000 dollars (or approximately 117,000 euros at the time) to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress who claims to have had an extramarital affair with him. During the trial, his former lawyer Michael Cohen said he made these payments at the request of the Republican, then a 2016 presidential candidate, to ensure that the affair would not hamper his campaign. In this case, Donald Trump was charged for falsifying documents with a view to committing another crime related to the financing of his campaign, and faced up to four years in prison.

The billionaire risks facing three other trials between now and the presidential election on November 5. He is being prosecuted in Florida for keeping classified White House documents at his personal home, but the start of the hearings was postponed by the judge. He is also indicted in Georgia for attempting to manipulate the results of the 2020 presidential election in this southern state. The start date of this trial has not yet been decided.

Donald Trump is also indicted by federal courts for “conspiracy against America”. In this case, he is also accused of having tried to reverse the results of the presidential election by “spreading lies that there had been fraud.” According to special prosecutor Jack Smith, this led to the assault by the Republican’s supporters on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The trial is suspended by a decision by the Supreme Court, which must rule on Donald Trump’s immunity from here at the end of June.