Guilty…guilty… guilty! The verdict was speedy, unanimous, and historic. The 12-member jury took just over 9 hours to conclude that former president Donald Trump was guilty on all 34 counts in the so-called ‘Hush money’ criminal trial at the New York Manhattan Court.
The speed with which the jury had made the determination took most observers, including the accused, by surprise. For that matter, the entire hearing over the preceding weeks was handled with promptitude by the presiding judge, Justice Juan Merchan. The judge would announce the sentence on July 11, just four days before the beginning of the Republican National Convention, which is expected to formally anoint Trump as the presidential nominee.
Trump has the ignominy of becoming the first former American president in the country’s 250-year history to be adjudged a criminal by a court of law. It is not that all former presidents were epitomes of virtue or did not have a brush with the law.
Delving into recent history, President Richard Nixon would have certainly been convicted in the Watergate scandal if he had not resigned in August 1974 and managed to secure a controversial ‘full, free, and absolute pardon for all offences against the US’ from his successor, President Gerald Ford.
President Bill Clinton went through an impeachment process in the US Senate in 1999 on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, abuse of power, etc. in connection with the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, but was acquitted as the required two-thirds majority to hold him guilty could not be mustered.
Trump has been pushing legal boundaries for a long time. According to Democrats and his detractors, the law has finally caught up with him. The Republicans, on the other hand, are livid and blame it on the Biden administration’s machinations. It is ironic that the former President has been adjudged guilty for a relatively minor offence, while three other criminal cases, far more serious, are pending in American courts but unlikely to come up for hearing before the November 5 elections.
Not unexpectedly, Trump lashed out at the verdict, calling it rigged and a disgrace. He described the judge as conflicted. He would have gone much further but for a gag order preventing him from commenting on the jury or family members of the judge whom he had targeted earlier. He depicts himself as a victim of a witch hunt and maintains his complete innocence.
Under the American legal system, a jury drawn from common citizens is responsible for deciding on facts. An accused can be held guilty only if the jury unanimously decides it to be so. The judge then goes ahead with sentencing. In the instant case, the judge has considerable leeway, ranging from the imposition of fines to placing him on probation or home confinement, ordering imprisonment for up to four years on each count, prescribing community service, or issuing a suspended sentence.
Most legal experts opine that, given his age and stature, Trump will not be incarcerated. Typically, in past cases, only financial penalties have been imposed. That he is a Secret Service protectee, requiring round-the-clock security, would also weigh heavily with the judge. As such, besides being fined, he may face token imprisonment (say for a few hours) due to his petulant behaviour in and outside the courtroom during the trial.
The sentence will be held in abeyance until the appeal process is concluded. Trump is certainly going to appeal to the ‘First Judicial Department of New York’s Appellate Division’ in the first instance, which is likely to take him past the November 5 mark. He can next approach New York’s Court of Appeals and possibly even the federal Supreme Court.
The real question is whether the conviction would have any legal or political fallout for Trump. Curiously, on balance, it may end up working to his advantage. American laws do not prevent a convicted felon from casting his ballot, campaigning in elections, or holding a public office. On the face of it, he can become the American president even if he’s behind bars. There is no constitutional provision debarring him from the president’s office. Political and legal pundits in the US argue that the framers of the Constitution had not foreseen such an eventuality.
Even if the need for such a law was felt in recent times, its enactment would have required an amendment to the Constitution, which is quite difficult. The US Constitution, adopted in 1789, has been amended only 27 times to date. An amendment needs to be approved by a 2/3rd majority in both houses and ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures, which is a tall order in the prevailing contentious political environment in the country. In comparison, the Indian constitution adopted in 1950 has already been amended 106 times.
Politically, the conviction seems to be less of a liability and more of a bonanza. It may or may not turn off a small number of undecided voters, but it has certainly galvanised and united the Republican Party. His incensed supporters are rallying behind their leader, who styles himself as a saviour of the country and constitution. In their book, he can do no wrong. They responded by loosening their purse strings and contributing an unprecedented 53 million dollars to Trump’s war chest within 24 hours of the verdict.
The ‘American principle that no one is above law was affirmed’ observed President Biden. However, that may not reflect the mainstream opinion in the country, which is divided right in the middle. There is a real danger of violence if Trump is imprisoned or if Biden wins the election. Trump and his supporters have convinced themselves that the only fair outcome is his victory; otherwise, the election would be deemed stolen.
It would be inconceivable in most law-abiding nations for a colourful personality like Trump, accused of moral turpitude, tax evasion, illegal possession of classified documents, and incitement of violence, among other misdemeanours, to assume or aspire to re-occupy the highest office in the land. The US seems to be an exception.
Such a state of affairs is hardly a testimonial to a robust or resilient democracy. Lip service apart, not many countries would want to emulate such an example. And then there is a ‘flawed democracy’ where 950 million citizens elect or eject a government every five years through a free and fair process that is respected by the victorious and the vanquished alike. It is high time for some nations to stop preaching and start introspecting.
The author is a foreign affairs specialist and an ex-envoy to Canada and South Korea. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
