Tristan R. Brown
Former president and convicted felon, Donald Trump, has been found guilty of criminal acts by a jury of his peers in a New York state court. Throughout his trial, Mr. Trump has been afforded every constitutional protection to which every person accused of a crime is entitled, and then some. In short, the system, despite all of its shortcomings, worked. In response, Mr. Trump and his supporters appear to have lost their minds. Rather than look in the mirror and ask themselves how they were so enthralled by a convicted felon, Republicans of all stripes are calling for revenge and crying foul. Let us dissect what happened here and see if their claims withstand even the most basic scrutiny.
Republicans would have you believe that charges against Mr. Trump were brought by a politicized Justice Department at the direction of President Biden. This is quite an allegation and would rightly undercut anyone’s faith in this trial. But, it falls flat on its face for two reasons. One, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department started investigating this scheme in 2018, and, two, this investigation began well before President Biden even announced his candidacy. In August 2018, Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime attorney and so-called “fixer,” pleaded guilty to charges brought by the Trump Justice Department, including tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations related to payments made to women who reported adulterous affairs with Mr. Trump before he ran for office. Mr. Cohen admitted his guilt and claimed that these payments were made at the direction of Mr. Trump, who wanted to keep the public from learning about his infidelity.
So, why weren’t charges brought against Mr. Trump in 2018? Well, The Department of Justice operates under the assumption that it is unconstitutional to indict a sitting president. That means no federal criminal charges could be brought until 2021. No state charges were brought because, according to the then-Manhattan DA, Cyrus Vance, the U.S. Dept. of Justice asked New York officials to stand down on their investigation. In early 2021, when the DOJ under Joe Biden actually declined to bring criminal charges in this case, Mr. Vance was surprised and disagreed with their decision. According to Mr. Vance, the Manhattan DA’s office was “prepared to go forward” when the Justice Department closed its investigation into Mr. Trump’s role in the hush money scheme. When Mr. Vance retired at the end of 2021, the investigation was left to his successor, incoming Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Two years later, in early January 2023, this investigation was completed and Mr. Bragg’s office had gathered enough evidence of criminal wrongdoing to empanel a grand jury, which, on March 30, 2023, handed down an indictment against Mr. Trump. The idea that President Biden had any role in Mr. Trump’s criminal case is utter fantasy.
Another outright falsehood pushed by Mr. Trump’s Republican backers is that he was not charged with a crime or was never told what the charges he faced were. But, according to the Manhattan DA’s office, Mr. Trump was charged with repeatedly and fraudulently falsifying business records to conceal damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election. The grand jury’s indictment clearly states that this is a violation of New York Penal laws, section 175.10: Falsifying business records in the first degree. Remember, Mr. Cohen was charged and pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations. Mr. Trump, according to Mr. Bragg’s office, falsified his business records in an attempt to hide these crimes — crimes which were committed at the direction of the former president, according to Mr. Cohen. This is a fairly straight forward violation of section 175.10 of the New York Penal Laws. It’s simply dishonest to claim that Mr. Trump was never informed of the crime he was accused and found guilty of committing.
The complaints from Mr. Trump and his cronies are many, and not a one of them holds water. Mr. Trump claimed that the trial against him was patently unfair because of the ethnicity of the judge. But, could there be anything more anti-American than the idea that the ancestry of one’s family means they are unable to use reason to make fair and honest decisions? Mr. Trump argues that because he polls so poorly in Manhattan, the jury pool was unavoidably tainted and biased. But, the Boston Marathon bomber was tried by a jury of Bostonians in federal court, does anyone think that they were unable to render a fair verdict? Even the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre managed to get a fair trial and were acquitted of murder charges by a jury of Massachusetts men. So, the idea that Mr. Trump had no legitimate chance defend himself due to his poor polling is laughable at best.
Mr. Trump and his supporters decry Mr. Cohen as a liar — and that might very well be the case. But, there are objective facts that can help us, the public, put together what happened. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to criminal acts. Mr. Cohen says that checks signed by Mr. Trump for “legal services” are the money Mr. Trump paid him to engage in those illegal acts — that triggered an investigation. After investigating the facts for years, the Manhattan DA’s office clearly believed Mr. Cohen. A grand jury of citizens thought there was enough evidence to bring charges against Mr. Trump. Another jury of regular citizens reviewed all of the evidence put forward by Mr. Trump and the Manhattan DA’s office and found there was no reasonable basis to doubt that Mr. Trump had committed 34 felonies. Could Mr. Cohen have been lying? It’s possible. Could Mr. Biden have secretly phoned DA Bragg and pushed him to bring charges? Sure. But there’s no reason to think that those things happened besides idle speculation or wishful thinking — no evidence exists to back up the arguments pushed by Mr. Trump in the media. One could just as easily say that pixies hypnotized the jury to find Mr. Trump guilty, or that the judge was actually Hugo Chavez in disguise attempting to destabilize America. Lies are easy. Talk is cheap. Mr. Trump had every opportunity to defend himself from these charges. He failed to do so.
Mr. Trump is guilty — beyond any reasonable doubt. The doubts Mr. Trump would now sow are unreasonable on every level. The anti-American, pro-Trump movement is at odds with everything that makes us a free country. They don’t care for free elections — only elections they win. They don’t care for the neutral application of justice — when they commit crimes, they believe they should not face consequences. True Patriots do not support this country only when it benefits them. They do not support our institutions only when they help them win. They support something bigger than themselves and refuse the alluring fantasies cooked up by demagogues and would-be dictators. Mr. Trump’s continued attacks on the institutions that secure law, order, and liberty prove that he does not deserve the support of any honest citizen of this republic. We must do what we can to reject his lies and confront those in our lives who have bought his unreasonable excuses for his criminal and immoral behavior.
Tristan Brown is a local activist and Peabody resident with degrees in history, political science, and law. You can contact him at thinkinaboutpolitics@gmail.com.
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