‘Trump Is Now a Felon, and That Will Matter’: 7 Writers on the Guilty Verdict
Welcome to Opinion’s coverage of the guilty verdict in the Manhattan trial of Donald Trump. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers reflect on this extraordinary development in American political history, on the moments and the dynamics that mattered most in the trial — and tease out its potential impact on the presidential election.
What mattered
Jamelle Bouie I am no lawyer and did not follow every in and out of the trial, but if there was a single thing that doomed Donald Trump — or at least, if there was a single thing that harmed his effort to escape a guilty verdict — it was his total contempt for the process and the proceedings. It is hard to imagine that he was helped, in any way, by his constant attacks on judge, jury and the trial itself. The jury, obviously, is asked only to evaluate the evidence before it, and yet, it is asking a lot of anyone to sit and ignore the fact that the defendant has, publicly, turned you into an enemy.
Matthew Continetti What mattered was that this case was brought at all. When Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted Trump in April 2023, he not only established the dangerous precedent that local officials can bring criminal charges against former presidents, he annexed the 2024 presidential campaign to the legal system, with unknown and potentially hazardous consequences. Bragg’s actions undermined confidence in the rule of law and rallied G.O.P. voters to Trump, helping him win a third consecutive Republican nomination. Bragg didn’t defeat Trumpism. He revived it.
David French The prosecution had a compelling story to tell. Trump did not want Stormy Daniels to go public right after the “Access Hollywood” tape with evidence that would demonstrate that he does, in fact, believe that his celebrity entitled him to do what he wanted with women. And when Trump concealed the nature of the payments, the prosecution could easily make the case — at least to a jury — that he must have known that the payments were legally problematic. Trial outcomes are often dictated by the side that can create the most coherent narrative, and the prosecution’s theory of the case was easy for the jury to grasp.
Michelle Goldberg The mountain of evidence! Though the discourse around the trial was all about the wisdom of Bragg bringing charges in the first place, the question in court was more straightforward — did Trump do what he was accused of? The prosecution showed that he did. Trump’s defense, meanwhile, made the ludicrous argument that he never had sex with Stormy Daniels, and that the $420,000 paid to Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen — which was part of the reason he went to prison — was a legitimate legal fee. It would have been shocking if the jury had bought it.
Quinta Jurecic There’s no way to know what led the jurors to reach the verdict they did. But throughout the trial, I was struck by the insistence of Trump’s lawyers on pursuing arguments or lines of questioning that seemed unhelpful to their case. Todd Blanche, for example, insisted repeatedly that Trump had never slept with Stormy Daniels, even though this denial boxed Trump into a weaker argument. These tactics by the defense seemed designed to placate Trump’s own vanity and sense of grievance — but even if they made the client happy, it’s hard to imagine they helped his case with the jury.
