The GOP White House candidate was defiantly lauded by his supporters while his detractors hailed the conviction.
The Republican Party of Florida issued a statement saying: “From a corrupt DA to a rigged judge, President Trump’s guilty verdict comes as no surprise. Trump Derangement Syndrome was alive and well in that New York courtroom, but here in the real world, Donald Trump’s support only grows stronger!”
The anti-Trump Lincoln Project, led in part by Tallahassee strategist Rick Wilson, said: “Donald Trump has been found guilty. With today’s ruling, Trump is a convicted criminal who’s running for President to roll back individual rights and wreck our democracy.”
Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of business fraud charges related to the payment of a hush money payment to an adult film actress in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
The verdict ended a nearly seven-week trial that marked the first time a former president of the United States was accused of a crime. The closest the country had come to such a dubious and disgracing distinction was 50 years ago when former President Richard Nixon faced the possibility of indictment in the Watergate scandal, but was spared by a presidential pardon issued by his successor, Gerald Ford.
U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican said: “Once this case started, it was clear to any impartial observer that justice in this case was not blind; the judge’s political bias, as a Biden donor, has clouded his judgment in favor of the political prosecution. This is no way to run a trial of a former President, Presidential candidate, or any American; political bias has no place in our court system.”
Hours before the jury came to its decision, Trump’s daughter-in-law, Republican National Committee Vice Chair Lara Trump, insisted in a defiant social media post that “no matter what witch hunts and lawfare the Left throws against President Trump, he will never stop fighting for the American people!”
Will verdict impact 2024 presidential election?
Insisting he is “a very innocent man,” Trump said he will be absolved in this year’s election.
“This is a rigged, disgraceful trial and the real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people,” said Trump after the verdict came out. He earlier announced he would be in Palm Beach County to celebrate his 78th birthday on June 14 with a speech during an event hosted by Club 47, a Trump fan club, at the Palm Beach Convention Center.
What impact the decision by the jury of seven men and five women will have on the 2024 campaign is unclear.
Trump has railed against the charges. Pollsters and political analysts have speculated the case in New York, as well as three others filed in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Miami, have helped the former president fundraise and bolstered his standing in the polls, especially among Republican Party voters that this year picked him as their presidential nominee.