A New York jury has convicted former US president Donald Trump on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment
A New York jury has convicted former US president Donald Trump on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen to adult film star, Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election.
This development is coming barely five months ahead of the election where he seeks to recapture the White House as a Republican nominee.
The verdict makes Trump the first criminally convicted former US president but does not prevent him from campaigning for another term.
The verdict was read in the Manhattan courtroom where Trump has been on trial since April 15.
He had pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts maintaining that the payments were legitimate.
Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche made a motion for acquittal after the jury left the room, which the judge denied.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury in his closing arguments earlier this week that the law is the law and it applies to everyone equally.
“There is no special standard for this defendant. You, the jury, have the ability to hold the defendant accountable,” Steinglass said.
Prosecutors said the disguised payment to Cohen was part of a “planned, coordinated long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures, to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior, using doctored corporate records and bank forms to conceal those payments along the way.”
While Trump was not charged with conspiracy, prosecutors argued he caused the records to be falsified because he was trying to cover up a violation of state election law- and falsifying business records with the intent to cover another crime raises the offense from a misdemeanor to a felony.
The verdict came after a sensational weeks-long trial that included combative testimony from Cohen, Trump’s self-described former fixer, and Daniels, who testified that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament.
Trump has denied her claim, and his attorney had suggested that Cohen acted on his own because he thought it would make Trump happy.
Other witnesses included former White House staffers including advisor Hope Hicks, former Trump Organization executives, and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.
Trump did not take the witness stand to offer his own account of what happened,
