For the first time in the 235 years since the Founding Fathers established an unprecedented system of government that put the law above any leader, an American jury on Wednesday morning began deliberating the fate of a former U.S. president in a criminal trial.
That remarkable milestone is testament to both the endurance of the Constitution’s rule of law and the continuing degradation of political and cultural norms wrought by this particular defendant.
On Thursday afternoon, the jury rendered its verdict: guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Regardless of the verdict, this trial vividly displayed his personal unfitness for public office and his overarching contempt for the very premise that he should be accountable to the law like anyone else.
The allegations here, however, are minor compared with the far more serious criminal charges in two other pending cases stemming from Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.
That fundamental attack on democracy must not go unconfronted. To the extent that Trump’s sycophantic followers in the GOP can paint the Manhattan hush-money trial as prosecutorial overreach, it bolsters their twisted narrative of Trump as a victim. He’s anything but.