Donald Trump is now a convicted felon. What happens next?

Donald Trump is now a convicted felon. What happens next?

Businessman. Reality-TV star. President. Convicted felon. The improbable life story of Donald Trump has an ignominious new chapter, courtesy of a New York court verdict.

Trump was found guilty on state charges of falsifying business records, in concealing payments to a porn star during the 2016 election to keep her from talking publicly about their past affair. 

In the span of just a few minutes on Thursday, the foreman of a Manhattan jury read out the unanimous verdict to count, after count, after count that will thrust the country into unknown political territory.

“Guilty,” said the middle-aged man, wearing a casual blue sweater. “Guilty. … Guilty. … Guilty,” he said, repeating himself 34 times for each of the counts.

Some in the courtroom gasped as the judge had announced there was a verdict. He’d been planning to send the jury home at the end of the day, when the foreman sent a note heralding a decision.  

At 5:03 p.m. local time, the jurors re-entered the room. Not a single one of them appeared to stare at Trump as they walked right past him toward the jury box. By 5:07 p.m., they’d convicted him.

Minutes later, they filed right past him again, none making any visible eye contact as they exited.

Trump sat impassive during the verdict, with the parties having just been warned by the judge not to react as the decision was announced.

Trump later gave his son Eric a prolonged, vigorous handshake as they left the courtroom minutes later, exiting this scene into that new, uncharted territory.

The first man ever to serve as U.S. president and be convicted of a crime has been ordered to come back to receive his sentence on July 11. 

This is just days before the Republican convention where Trump is scheduled to be officially crowned the party’s presidential nominee.

Trump to continue campaign

To be clear, Trump remains free to keep running for president; it’s a race he might very well win, if current public opinion polls are accurate. 

“The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people [on election day],” Trump said in a defiant statement. “I’m a very innocent man, and it’s OK, I’m fighting for our country.”

But the verdict will unleash an unpredictable succession of events that could wind on without resolution for months — potentially even for years.

First, Trump will be asked to meet with a probation officer in the coming days. That officer will be asked to write a sentencing report, including details such as whether Trump shows contrition.

A veteran New York City criminal lawyer has this unsolicited advice for Trump: admit your guilt in that meeting, or say nothing.

“Just don’t deny it,” said Mark Cohen, who has spent decades first as a prosecutor, then a defence lawyer. “Denying it would be a problem with the judge.”

That judge is Juan Merchan, a daily target of Trump’s wrath.

Trump will certainly appeal the verdict, alleging bias and judicial errors, arguing that Merchan sealed Trump’s fate by issuing unfair instructions to the jury that were impossible to defend against. Those appeals could take years to sort out. 

In the meantime, Merchan will decide Trump’s short-term fate.

Merchan’s July 11 sentencing decision will hang like an un-detonated bomb over the coming weeks of the presidential election. 

Penalties range from fines to prison time

That’s because the gamut of potential penalties for this crime is head-spinningly vast: Trump could receive anything from a verbal warning, to probation conditions, to serious prison time — potentially up to four years for each of the 34 counts.

The prevailing view is that Trump won’t go to prison. As a first-time offender, convicted for the lowest category of non-violent felony, most legal observers expect a lesser penalty.

“Almost no one familiar with the New York criminal legal system expects a sentence of incarceration,” said Tim Bakken, a former New York prosecutor who now teaches law at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York state.

There’s a caveat here. Trump’s behaviour throughout the trial — with his frequent trashing of the judge and witnesses, and his string of contempt-of-court findings — makes a harsher penalty possible.

“Before this [trial] started, I would have thought [he’d get] probation,” Cohen told CBC News.  

“[But] Trump’s done his best to promote disrespect for the law. So I would think that would be something that Merchan’s gotta be thinking about.”

So there is the possibility that a presidential candidate might be campaigning from jail.

And there’s no telling how Trump supporters might react. 

Outside the courthouse this week, Joe Palau, a construction worker from Brooklyn in a red MAGA cap, insisted a conviction would backfire politically. “If he’s found guilty, more people will go to him.”

Cynthia Frybarger, a Trump critic from California who was in town taking in the scene, described it as a well-deserved serving of justice to a man she described as a decades-long law-breaker.

Trump first made news headlines in the 1970s when the U.S. Justice Department sued his family business for refusing to rent apartments to Black and Latino people in violation of anti-housing-discrimination laws; the suit was settled out of court.

“I’m embarrassed by it, to be honest with you,” said Frybarger, 73, a retiree who worked in the lending industry. She was standing outside the courtroom this week holding a sign that said, “Lock Him Up.”

“Doesn’t make me a proud American.”

Ultimately, Trump’s fate may play out in a far larger court of public opinion, as more than 100 million Americans are expected to cast ballots in this year’s presidential election.

The impact of this verdict will be scrutinized ferociously. Polls will be pored over in the coming days to determine whether this monumental event tilts the race toward President Joe Biden.

Watching the next polls

Here’s all we know on that score.

In the lead-up to the trial in April, several surveys suggested a guilty verdict could damage Trump politically. They said he might lose several crucial percentage points, trigger a stampede of swing voters or lead a staggering 16 to 24 per cent of his voters to reconsider their support.

We’re no longer in the world of hypothetical statistics. We’re now entering a real-world scenario where there’s no proof this shift will happen.

It is an untested proposition, to put it mildly, that the criminal cover-up of a two-decade-old affair will succeed in reducing Trump’s support where so many other events have not. 

Two presidential impeachments, the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a sexual-abuse finding, recorded remarks about forcing himself upon women, a corporate-fraud verdict and promises to use state tools to punish his adversaries — none of these have made Trump electorally toxic. 

In the meantime, the native New Yorker produced a memorable New York moment. Scores of people filled the street near the courthouse after the verdict, snapping photos outside a police barrier.

Some were Trump fans, some were detractors, some just curious onlookers. Noah Bergin, a musician in town from Indiana to play a concert, said he never believed Trump would be convicted on all 34 counts.

He described feeling relieved that nobody is above the law. As for predicting the effect it will have on the 2024 presidential race, he reacted with a touch of humility that even a seasoned pundit might emulate here.

“It’s a long way ’til the election,” Bergin said. 

“We’ll see how it plays out.”

Published at Mon, 15 Apr 2024 09:35:06 +0000

Boeing, NASA prepare for second flight test of new Starliner despite leak on spacecraft

After a failed launch attempt of Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule on May 6, NASA and the aerospace company are prepared for a second go — even though the spacecraft will be flying with a small helium leak.

On Wednesday, Boeing and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration called a “go” for launch after a flight test readiness review. The launch is set for Saturday at 12:25 p.m. ET. If this launch is delayed, there are other opportunities on June 2, 5 and 6.

The initial launch attempt of Starliner (also known as CST-100) was scrubbed due to an oxygen leak. The launch was called off  just as NASA’s two astronauts — Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who will be the test crew for this capsule — were getting strapped into their seats on the new spacecraft on the night of May 6.

The leak was detected on the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket on which the capsule is hitching a ride.

After the rocket and capsule were rolled back to ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility for further examination, the oxygen leak was traced back to a thruster valve that was eventually replaced.

However, other issues were discovered, including a helium leak in Starliner.

At a press update last week, Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Starliner program manager, said that had the helium leak been discovered during launch procedures, it wouldn’t have caused a scrub. He also said the discovery had a “silver lining.”

“Had we launched … it would have been a safe flight and a successful flight,” he said, “but we would have not known as much as we know today.”

The leak was discovered in a small control jet that helps the capsule make small adjustments while in orbit. However, there are 28 of these jets, and the teams working on the issue ensured that none of the others could fail. Helium is an inert gas and not combustible.

The reason given for not fixing the leak was that it would have caused further delays to a launch that has faced years of setbacks.

The teams would have had to remove Starliner from Atlas V, take it to a separate facility and drain the service module (which provides power and propulsion for the capsule). Then they’d have to start at the beginning and refill the capsule with propellant and reinstall it atop the rocket.

Although the leak is small, they determined that even if it were to leak further, it would “not be a safety-of-flight-issue,” Nappi said.

Yet another problem

Meanwhile, teams also discovered another issue, this time with the flight re-entry system, something Nappi called a “design vulnerability.”

When Starliner re-enters the atmosphere, it needs to lose a great deal of speed. It has three different ways of doing this — referred to as redundancy capabilities. One approach uses four special thrusters (which includes one with the helium leak), another uses just two and the third approach uses eight smaller thrusters.

Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told the press update they realized that under the “right circumstances of failure,” they could lose the eight-thruster capability. But Boeing contacted the vendor of the part and worked out a solution. Wednesday’s flight test readiness review was in part to ensure that this method would be satisfactory.

“This is an important flight for us. It is not easy. I’ve been in human spaceflight for 37 years, and there’s challenges with every single flight,” Stich said of the findings. “There were challenges with [the] space shuttle, there’s challenges with the Orion vehicle that we’re learning about as we flew that test flight, and there’s challenges in every vehicle.”

Should the launch proceed as scheduled on Saturday, the astronauts would dock with the International Space Station (ISS) at 1:50 p.m. ET on Sunday.

Nearing the finish line

After NASA’s space shuttle program ended in 2011, the space agency had no other option but to use Russian Soyuz rockets to get American and Canadian astronauts into space.

Boeing’s Starliner has been rife with delays after NASA gave contracts to both SpaceX and Boeing to build a new spacecraft that could ferry astronauts to the space station.

While SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, successfully began launching astronauts to the ISS in 2020, Boeing has yet to do so.

Astronauts Williams and Wilmore, who have been in quarantine since the earlier scrub, returned to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Tuesday ahead of their launch.

Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk will once again be in NASA’s capsule communication (CapCom) role at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, providing critical communications during launch.

It’s a special role for him, as he is one of four crew members who will take the same spacecraft on its first operational mission about a year from now — a six-month journey to the ISS and back.

Published at Fri, 31 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000