Donald Trump Convicted on All 34 Counts in Hush Money Trial
BU experts in law and media science react to historic verdict and what it means for the former president’s future
Former President Donald Trump outside of Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Thursday, May 30, 2024. Photo by Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool
Donald Trump Convicted on All 34 Counts in Hush Money Trial
BU experts in law and media science react to historic verdict and what it means for the former president’s future
Thursday’s conviction of Donald J. Trump, the first former U.S. president ever to face criminal charges, “is an incredibly historic moment, and generally for all the wrong reasons,” says Tammy Vigil, a Boston University College of Communication associate professor of media science and senior associate dean, whose focus includes politics.
Twelve jurors in a Manhattan courtroom found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Sentencing is scheduled for July 11, which is four days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump is expected to become the GOP nominee to run against President Joe Biden in November.
“Having an actual former president who’s been convicted now of multiple felonies is something that is shocking, I think, to the sensibilities of most Americans in terms of what we expect from a president or a former president,” Vigil says. “We’ve never had one that has basically become so notorious and yet still is seeking reelection and has a very viable chance at winning. And so I think that says something to where we are as a nation and who we are becoming as a people.
“In terms of the ways we’ve shifted some of our perspectives on what does and doesn’t matter, in terms of leadership,” she adds.
Jed Shugerman, a BU School of Law professor, who had been critical of the decision to prosecute the case, says of the verdict: “Karma was going to come calling. If you commit 100 crimes, at some point, there’s going to be some rough sense of justice.”
The 77-year-old Trump was charged for allegedly disguising payments made to Michael Cohen, one of his attorneys. State prosecutors alleged Trump made the payments to reimburse Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. Cohen said he paid Daniels—at Trump’s behest—to stay quiet about a sexual encounter that she said she had had with Trump years earlier.
Although sometimes a misdemeanor in New York State, falsifying business records in this case qualifies as a low-level felony because prosecutors charge the crimes were committed as part of an effort to unlawfully influence the 2016 election, in which Trump beat Hilary Clinton. Trump could be sentenced to anything from probation to four years in prison.
The possible effect on the election is hard to gauge, Vigil says, especially as many voters already have rock-solid perspectives on which candidate they will, or will not, support.
“For those folks who haven’t, or those folks who might have a different kind of calculus going on, this might impact the ways in which they’re thinking about voting,” Vigil says. “But the other part is just the practical aspects of the campaign itself.”
Trump’s sentencing will also come just a couple of weeks after the first scheduled debate between himself and Biden. “I think that’s a really awkward sense of timing,” Vigil says. “I’m sure there’ll be questions during the debate centered around this.”
More important may be the way Trump’s conviction, his reaction, and the media’s coverage change the national conversation around the 2024 election.
“It definitely will dominate the headlines… I think it [can] move it away from the concerns of the people writ large, to more of a concern about how we see leadership. And so I think that’s changing the dialogue, the political dialogue in ways that in all honesty kind of worry me,” Vigil says.
“Instead of actually thinking about the issues, or talking and debating about the things that really concern the day-to-day lives and the governance of the people, we’re talking about a person and his problems in a much more focused kind of way. And there are people who don’t seem to mind or they actually take that as a badge of honor for him. And so I think that’s just an awkward thing to say about how we as Americans are looking at leadership.”
And some Trump supporters have shown a propensity for extremist actions, Vigil notes, referring to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, among other events.
“I think that’s an absolutely reasonable concern, considering what we’ve seen in the past and the kinds of rhetoric that we’ve seen from Donald Trump, even during the jury deliberations, all of the Truth Social posts that he’d been putting out, the vitriolic kinds of perspective that he’s been sending out into the world,” Vigil says. “His followers, some of them don’t take much to push over the edge, to inspire new and scary kinds of behaviors. And so I am worried that there’s going to be some kind of action either collectively or even just stray individuals who kind of take it upon themselves to try to maybe figure out who the jurors were or go after the judge and their family.”
And despite the 34 convictions after less than two days of deliberations, the legal case is far from settled, says Shugerman, who focuses on politics, the judiciary, and presidential power.
“I will say that it feels right now that there’s a degree of legal karma here,” says Shugerman. “This was not a strong case legally. But Trump has found a way to evade legal accountability for a whole series of much more serious crimes. I think there was a felony with the Russian collusion, I think there was a felony, bribery, quid pro quo with the Ukraine phone call. And that’s even before January 6. So we have never had a presidential crime spree like this. And so one big picture here is we just might chalk this up to legal karma. This was not a strong case.”
Karma was going to come calling. If you commit 100 crimes, at some point, there’s going to be some rough sense of justice.
And he says the way the case has been prosecuted may help Trump in the public arena, at least among his own followers: “This case, conviction or not, happens to validate some of Trump’s toxic narrative. You know: the idea that the legal elites are using the legal system to go after him. He’s been able to evade justice in many of those stronger cases. This is a conviction, but it’s otherwise a mixed verdict on our legal system.”
Shugerman says some specific aspects of the prosecution may have made it easier to get a conviction, but may also open the possibility of it being overturned on appeal by the New York courts. He said Judge Juan M. Merchan will likely sentence Trump to probation in July and then stay the sentence pending appeal. And if Trump wins the presidency in November, the Supreme Court will likely be involved.
“If by the time those [state] appeals are exhausted,” Shugerman says, “and let’s say all the convictions are sustained on appeal, then if New York State tried to enforce a prison sentence or house arrest, President Trump could go to federal court to enjoin the enforcement of sentence. But that’s several years down the road.”
This is the only one of the four criminal cases against Trump that will go to trial before the November election pitting him against his Democratic successor in the White House, Joe Biden. But Trump still faces charges related to the January 6, insurrection at the Capitol, interference with election officials in Georgia after the November 2020 election, and his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.
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