Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They are relying in part on tips from his network of conservative contacts, including even workers themselves. In a move that alarms some, they are preparing to publish the findings online.

With a $100,000 grant from the influential Heritage Foundation, the goal is to post 100 names of government workers to a website this summer to show a potential new administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump agenda — and ripe for scrutiny, reclassifications, reassignments or firings.

“We need to understand who these people are and what they do,” said Jones, a former Capitol Hill aide to Republican senators.

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The concept of compiling and publicizing a list of government employees shows the lengths that Trump’s allies are willing to go to ensure that nothing or no one will block his plans in a potential second term. Jones’ Project Sovereignty 2025 comes as Heritage’s own Project 2025 is laying the groundwork, with policies, proposals and personnel ready day one of a possible new White House.

The effort, which is focused on top career government officials who are not appointees within the political structure, has stunned democracy experts and shocked the civil service community in what they compare to the “red scare” of midcentury McCarthyism.

Jacqueline Simon, policy director at the American Federation of Government Employees, said the language being thrown around — the Heritage Foundation’s announcement praised the group for ferreting out “anti-American bad actors” — is “so shocking.”

Civil servants are often former military personnel and all are required to take an oath to the Constitution to work for the federal government, not a loyalty test to any one president in the White House, she and others said.

“It just seems as though their goal is to try to menace federal employees and sow fear,” said Simon, whose union is backing President Joe Biden for re-election.

As Trump, who has been convicted of felony charges in a hush-money case and is under a four-count federal indictment accusing him of working to overturn the 2020 election, faces a likely rematch with Biden this fall, far-right conservatives have vowed to take a wrecking ball to what they call the deep-state bureaucracy.

The Trump campaign has said repeatedly that outside groups do not speak for the former president who alone is setting his policy priorities.

Conservatives view the federal workforce as overstepping its role to become a power center that can drive or thwart a president’s agenda. Particularly during the Trump administration, government officials came under attack from both the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill, as his own Cabinet often raised objections to some of the former president’s more singular or even unlawful proposals.

While Jones’ group won’t necessarily be recommending whether to fire or reassign any of the federal workers it lists, the work aligns with Heritage’s far-reaching Project 2025 blueprint for a conservative administration.

Heritage’s Project 2025 proposes reviving the Trump “Schedule F” policy that would try to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers as political appointees, which could enable mass dismissals – although a new Biden administration rule seeks to make that more difficult. The Heritage project is working to recruit and train a new generation to come to Washington to fill government jobs.

In announcing the $100,000 “Innovation Award” last month, Heritage said it would support American Accountability Foundation’s “investigative researchers, in-depth reports, and educational efforts to alert Congress, a conservative administration, and the American people to the presence of anti-American bad actors burrowed into the administrative state and ensure appropriate action is taken.”

Heritage President Kevin Roberts said in a statement the “weaponization of the federal government” has been possible only because of the “deep state of entrenched Leftist bureaucrats.” He said he was proud to support the work of American Accountability Foundation workers “in their fight to hold our government accountable and drain it of bad actors.”

The federal government employs about 2.2 million people. That includes those in the Washington, D,C, area but also workers who the unions say many Americans know as friends or neighbors in communities across the country.

About 4,000 positions in the government are considered political appointees who routinely change from one presidential administration to the next, but most are career professionals — from landscapers at Veterans Administration cemeteries to economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The public list-making conjures for some the era of Joseph McCarthy, the former senator who conducted grueling hearings into suspected communist sympathizers during the Cold War. They were orchestrated by a top staffer, Roy Cohn, who went on to become a confidant of a younger Trump.

Skye Perryman, CEO of the advocacy group Democracy Forward, said it’s all deeply disturbing, and reminiscent of “the darker parts of American history.”

“This is part of the overall, highly concerning and alarming trend,” she said.

Publicly naming government workers is an “intimidation tactic to try to chill the work of these civil servants,” she said, and part of a broader “retribution agenda” under way this election.

“They’re seeking to undermine our democracy, they’re seeking to undermine the way that our government works for people,” she said.

Jones, from his desk overlooking rickhouses storing barrels in the “Bourbon Capitol” of Bardstown, scoffed at comparisons to McCarthyism as “nonsense.”

He’s a former staffer to former Sen. Jim DeMint, the South Carolina conservative Republican who went on to lead Heritage and now helms the Conservative Policy Institute, where American Accountability Foundation has a mailing address. Jones also worked for Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, and provided opposition research for Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential bid.

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With six researchers, Jones’ team is operating remotely across the country, poring over the information about federal workers within Homeland Security, State Department and other agencies that deal with immigration and border issues.

Their focus is on the highest ranks of the civil servants — so-called GS-13, GS-14, and GS-15 employees and those in senior executive positions who could put up roadblocks to Trump’s plans for tighter borders and more deportations.

“I think it’s important to the next administration to understand who those people are,” he said.

He dismissed the risks that could be involved in publicly posting the names, salary information and other details of federal workers who have some level of privacy, or the idea that his group’s work could be putting employees’ livelihoods in jeopardy.

“You don’t get to make policy and then say, ‘Hey don’t scrutinize me,”’ he said.

He acknowledges some of the work is often a “gut check” or “instinct” about which federal employees would be suspected of trying to block a conservative agenda.

“We’re looking at, ‘Are there wrong people on the bus right now that are, you know, openly hostile to efforts to secure the southern border?”’

His own group came under scrutiny as it first probed Biden nominees.

Biden had repealed Trump’s Schedule F executive order in January 2021, but a Government Accountability Office report in 2022 found that agencies believed it could be reinstated by a future administration.

Since then, the Biden administration issued a new rule that would make it harder to fire workers. A new administration could direct the Office of Personnel Management to undo the new regulation, but the process would take time and be open to legal challenges.

He told reporters Saturday that he already has made his decision and that the person will be in attendance Thursday night in Atlanta at the first debate of the general election campaign against Democratic President Joe Biden.

Trump’s choice would likely become the immediate front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination four years from now if Trump were to win a second term, the constitutional limit. But that No. 2 will be under immense pressure from Trump and his allies to show loyalty at all times.

Trump turned on his first vice president, Mike Pence, after Pence rebuffed his boss’ efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, based on false theories promoted by the then-president after his loss to Biden.

Pence has declined to endorse Trump this time around.

Trump has said his top consideration for a vice president is whether someone is qualified to take over as commander in chief.

But other factors at play: Who can raise money? Who performs well on television? Who will be most effective on the debate stage against Vice President Kamala Harris? Who risks overshadowing Trump, as a lame-duck if he is elected in November, with talk soon of 2028? And who has “the look”?

Trump’s campaign has repeatedly cautioned that anyone “claiming to know who or when President Trump will choose his VP is lying, unless the person is named Donald J. Trump.”

And given Trump’s penchant for unpredictability and drama, the best-laid plans could change.

A look at the top contenders heading into the convention in Milwaukee that will begin July 15.

Doug Burgum

Trump likes rich people. North Dakota’s two-term governor is most definitely rich.

Before his time as governor, Burgum led a software company that was acquired by Microsoft for more than $1 billion. He also has worked in real estate development and venture capital and spent millions on his own White House bid.

Burgum had initially run against Trump for the 2024 nomination, but the little-known governor from a sparsely-populated state gained little traction. When Burgum dropped his bid, he quickly endorsed the former president. Since then, Burgum has become one of Trump’s most visible defenders, appearing frequently on television, joining him at fundraisers, and traveling to New York for Trump’s criminal trial.

But more than that, Trump and Burgum have hit it off personally.

Burgum and his wife, Kathryn, are said to get along especially well with Trump and his team — the kind of rapport that has particular currency in Trump’s orbit. It does not hurt that Trump thinks Burgum looks the part — a “central casting” pick.

Selecting Burgum would, in some ways, echo Pence: a staid, uncontroversial governor with lesser national name recognition. Burgum, 67, would be unlikely to compete with Trump for the spotlight or to immediately overshadow him with 2028 talk.

Burgum also brings money and rich friends to the table.

But does the Republican Party want two older white guys atop the ticket?

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J.D. Vance

Swept to national prominence by his bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance has held office for less than two years. But during his short time in the Senate, the former venture capitalist from Ohio has established himself as one of the fiercest defenders of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda, especially when it comes to foreign policy, trade and immigration.

Despite his early criticism of Trump, Vance has become personally close with the former president and his son Donald Trump Jr., who has talked up the senator. Vance has become a fixture of the conservative media circuit, frequently spars with reporters on Capitol Hill and has appeared with Trump at recent fundraisers and at court.

At 39, Vance, would inject some millennial energy into a race that features an 81-year-old (Biden) and a 78-year-old (Trump) at the top of the major parties’ tickets. And a debate with Harris would certainly be heated.

But will Trump be able to get over Vance’s record of past insults, which he mentions still?

In 2016, Vance was one of Trump’s fiercest critics, casting the then-reality TV star as “a total fraud” and “moral disaster” and calling him “America’s Hitler.”

Vance has said he was proved wrong by Trump’s performance in office and the senator now castigates the liberals who made his book a bestseller as they sought a window into understanding Trumpism.

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Marco Rubio

If picking Vance would excite Trump’s base, choosing the Florida senator might expand the ticket’s appeal, particularly among deep-pocketed donors and more establishment-minded and moderate Republicans turned off by Trump’s rhetoric and extremism.

Rubio, once seen as a GOP hotshot, is now a well-respected voice on foreign policy and national security issues in his party. The son of Cuban immigrants, he speaks Spanish and could help Trump win over the Hispanic voters that his campaign is eagerly courting.

Rubio is also seen as a skilled debater who could hold his own against Harris.

Running alongside Trump might once have seemed unlikely possibility, given that the two were bitter rivals in 2016 for the GOP nomination and viciously attacked one another. Trump belittled Rubio as “Little Marco,” mocked him for drinking water during speeches and called him a “nervous basket case,” who was “disgusting.” Rubio said Trump was a “con man” who tried to “swindle” the Republican Party and Rubio tried to question Trump’s manhood.

“You know what they say about men with small hands,” Rubio quipped at one point during that campaign.

But then there is Rubio’s Florida “problem,” as Trump has called it.

The Constitution says two candidates from the same state cannot run as president and vice president, meaning Rubio would need to change his residency — something he is reportedly willing to do.

But does he really want the job? Rubio has been noticeably less present, publicly, than some of the others vying to be Trump’s No. 2 and did not appear with Trump at his criminal trial.

Tim Scott

The only Black Republican in the Senate, the South Carolinian would bring racial and stylistic diversity to the GOP ticket as well as a preacher’s touch. The self-described “born-again believer” often quotes Scripture in political speeches that often reach a crescendo of call-and-response.

Scott and Trump worked closely together while Trump was in the White House on a host of policy issues, including Trump’s tax cuts, opportunity zones, and criminal justice reform legislation.

Though Scott ran against Trump for the nomination this year, the senator largely declined to criticize the former president. After failing to gain traction despite millions spent on his behalf by high-profile donors, Scott endorsed Trump over fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley, Trump’s U.N. ambassador, and immediately began enthusiastically campaigning across New Hampshire and South Carolina on Trump’s behalf.

He continues to make frequent appearances on television and recently launched a $14 million campaign to win over minority voters in seven key swing states.

Trump has often joked that Scott has made a far better surrogate than he did a candidate.

But that has also raised questions about how Scott might perform on a debate stage with Harris later this year.

Elise Stefanik

The only woman on his shortlist, the New York congresswoman could help Trump win over skeptical college-educated and suburban women who sided with Biden in 2020.

Stefanik was once an aide to former House Speaker Paul Ryan and served in President George W. Bush’s White House, working for two Republicans now shunned by Trump loyalists. But she transformed during Trump’s four years in office into a fully-fledged Trump acolyte.

She defended him vigorously in both of his impeachment trials and railed against his criminal indictments. In 2022, Stefanik was the first member of Republican House leadership to endorse Trump’s campaign, and did so before he had even announced.

She saw her profile rise after her aggressive questioning in December of a trio of university presidents over antisemitism on campus that led to two of their resignations. Trump has repeatedly praised that performance.

Stefanik has spent years ingratiating herself with Trump and positioning herself as one of his most trusted allies and confidantes on Capitol Hill.

But at 39 and a member of the House, does she have enough experience?

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Ben Carson

Relationships and trust matter to Trump. Carson, who served as secretary of housing and urban development during Trump’s administration, has developed a strong bond with the former president over the years, despite a contentious start as 2016 rivals.

A soft-spoken former renowned neurosurgeon, Carson, 72, could help Trump win over minority voters as the first Black person to be named to a Republican presidential ticket. Given Carson’s age and demeanor, there is little chance of him overshadowing Trump or stealing the spotlight.

But Carson also has a history of controversial comments on abortion, guns and other issues that could cause headaches for the ticket.

The Florida congressman has become one of Trump’s most prominent conservative Black supporters and a reliable surrogate on television and at events.

His selection could help bolster Trump’s appeal with Black voters, especially the younger Black men that the campaign has been courting as it tries to eat into Biden’s 2020 coalition.

Byron Donalds

At 45, Donalds is also the kind of fresh face who would serve a marked contrast to the men at the top of both parties’ tickets.

But like Rubio, Donalds would likely need to move to join the ticket. And he, too, has a history of controversial statements, including at a recent “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” event in Philadelphia, where he seemed to reflect favorably on the Jim Crow era as he talked about “the reinvigoration” of the Black family.

“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people always have been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively,” Donalds said, according to audio from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In court papers filed Friday, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office argued that portions of the gag order remained necessary given the Republican former president’s “singular history of inflammatory and threatening public statements,” as well as efforts by his supporters to “identify jurors and threaten violence against them.”

“Since the verdict in this case, defendant has not exempted the jurors from his alarming rhetoric that he would have ‘every right’ to seek retribution as president against the participants in this trial as a consequence of his conviction because ’sometimes revenge can be justified,” the filing states.

The gag order, issued in March, prohibited Trump from making or directing others to make public statements about witnesses, jurors and others connected to the case. It does not restrict comments about the judge, Juan M. Merchan, or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case.

Attorneys for Trump have called on the judge to lift the order following the culmination of his trial last month, which ended in his conviction on 34 felony counts for falsifying records to cover up a potential sex scandal. Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, is set to be sentenced on July 11.

Defense attorneys argue Trump should be free to fully address the case as he campaigns for the White House, pointing to comments made by President Joe Biden and the continued public criticism of him by his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen and the porn actor Stormy Daniels, both key prosecution witnesses.

“Now that the trial is concluded, the concerns articulated by the government and the Court do not justify continued restrictions on the First Amendment rights” of Trump, they wrote earlier this month.

In their letter, prosecutors agreed that the provision barring statements about trial witnesses no longer needed to be enforced but said the restrictions on statements about court staff and members of the prosecution, excluding Bragg, should remain in place.

They cited an “intensified” threat situation in recent months, with more than 60 “actionable threats” directed against Bragg, his family and court staff since April. The threats include social media posts disclosing the address of an employee of the district attorney’s office and a photo showing sniper sights aimed on people involved in the case, according to police.

Merchan is expected to issue a ruling soon, possibly before Trump’s June 27 debate with President Joe Biden.

Earlier this week, New York’s top court declined to hear Trump’s appeal on the gag order, finding it does not raise “substantial” constitutional issues that would warrant an immediate intervention.

The 24-page filing said Judge Engoron should step aside in light of a state judicial conduct investigation launched last month. Sources familiar with the investigation said the probe is examining whether Engoron engaged in an improper conversation about the case with an expert real estate lawyer three weeks before issuing his $454 million penalty ruling.

That lawyer is Adam Leitman Bailey, who unexpectedly revealed his alleged interaction with the judge during two taped TV interviews with NBC New York in February.

“I wanted him to know what I think and why…I really want him to get it right,” Bailey said, repeating that it had been his intention to advise Engoron about the law in the Trump case and why harsh penalties would be bad for business in New York. Bailey later said he and the judge “never mentioned the word Donald Trump,” but when asked if it had been clear which case they had been discussing, Bailey responded “Well obviously we weren’t talking about the Mets.”

In their motion, the Trump legal team said WNBC’s reporting on Bailey’s public statements raises questions about outside influence on the judge.

“Where, as here, this Court’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned under the circumstances, it must recuse. Indeed, there is no other means of dispelling the shadow that now looms over this Court’s impartiality,” the filing states.

Read the full filing below:

When reached for comment, court spokesman Al Baker said “we have no further comment on this matter.” WNBC also reached out to Bailey for a response but has not yet heard back.

Bailey is a high-profile attorney who has coedited textbooks on New York real estate law. His law license was once suspended in part for cursing at opposing litigants. Bailey told News 4 he had a longstanding professional relationship with Engoron, so he approached him in the courthouse to explain to him that a fraud statute at issue in the case was not intended to be used to shut down a major company, especially in a case without clear victims.

“I know he respects my real estate knowledge,” Bailey said. “So I gave it to him. I gave him everything I knew. He had a lot of questions, you know about certain cases. We went over it.”

A statement from a court spokesman in February did not deny that a conversation had taken place between the judge and the lawyer, but implied the interaction was insignificant.

“No ex parte conversation concerning this matter occurred between Justice Engoron and Mr. Bailey or any other person. The decision Justice Engoron issued February 16 was his alone, was deeply considered, and was wholly uninfluenced by this individual,” said Al Baker, a spokesman for the New York State’s Office of Court Administration, in a written statement.

After Bailey’s on-camera claims to WNBC and the judge’s broad, written denial, the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct (NYSCJC) opened an investigation last month, according to sources familiar with the matter.

And within weeks, the commission questioned Bailey under oath about his claims. In a statement, NYSCJC Administrator Robert Tembeckjian said “The Commission on Judicial Conduct is constrained by a strict confidentiality statute and has no comment on this matter.”

The commission is collecting evidence to determine whether Engoron violated ethics rules, the sources said. These rules generally prohibit judges from discussing pending cases with outside parties, or accepting any expert advice unless it is disclosed to the parties in the case who must be given a chance to respond.

Ethics experts point out that the rules do not prohibit abstract discussions of the law, and that judges are afforded discretion in deciding which contacts must be disclosed.

In their filing, the Trump team said Engoron had “failed to notify” them of Bailey’s alleged input, accusing the judge of three months of “obfuscation.”

Trump’s motion requests a separate evidentiary hearing before a different judge to call witnesses — including Bailey — if Engoron does not agree to recuse himself. Trump’s attorney Christopher Kise said they are also issuing their own civil subpoenas seeking communications between Bailey and Engoron.

Sources familiar with the Judicial Conduct investigation say the Commission already asked Bailey to turn over any emails and texts he may have exchanged with Judge Engoron.

Bailey suggested he was texting Engoron seeking intel on his penalty ruling, hours before it was due to be released.

“What’s he thinking?” Bailey asked, as he appeared to type on his phone during his on camera interview with WNBC.
“I should text him….He’s probably getting bombarded…I’ll text him. I wanna get this decision.”

The court spokesman declined to tell NBC New York whether Engoron received texts from Bailey inquiring about his Trump ruling before it was issued that day.

Since February, the court spokesman has not responded to any of WNBC’s specific additional questions about the duration and nature of the interaction between Engoron and Bailey. For instance, did the judge engage with Bailey or did he try to shut the conversation down?

According to Trump’s motion, a judge’s responsibility to avoid any appearance of impropriety is heightened “in a case that has commanded worldwide attention.”

Several ethics experts and former judges contacted by News 4 say it will likely be the judge’s decision whether to recuse himself from the Trump civil case. But they note the existence of a Judicial Conduct investigation does not itself necessitate a recusal.

Former President Trump has repeatedly accused Engoron, a Democrat, of bias. The Trump team unsuccessfully demanded a mistrial in November and has criticized the judge’s decisions which are currently on appeal.

Under a lawyer’s rules of professional conduct, a lawyer should not “state or imply an ability” to improperly influence a judge, nor assist a judge in violating their own rules. But Bailey emailed WNBC several hours after Engoron issued his penalty ruling on February 16:

“I guess I convinced the judge to change his mind and reverse his ruling on the certificates and selling DT’s (Donald Trump’s) NY assets. Crazy,” Bailey wrote, without offering evidence.

But by the time Bailey approached the judge, there were other forces in play. An appeals court had already put Engoron’s initial ruling to revoke Trump’s business certificates on hold.

It’s not clear why Bailey would disclose in a television interview an effort to advise a judge that could land himself in trouble, according to legal ethics experts consulted for this report. When NBC New York pressed Bailey about the ethics of the conversation he had described, he said he had done nothing improper. So far it is unclear if Bailey is facing any sort of ethics probe for his alleged actions.

Bailey stopped responding to News 4 in February after learning his interaction with the judge might become the subject of our story. In his last email to WNBC in February, he wrote:

“If you do a story about my conversation about the law with the judge, you will harm my reputation with the judge and others. Why is this news?”

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The court said it was dismissing the appeal “upon the ground that no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.”

That means the gag order imposed on Trump by state Judge Juan Merchan is still in effect.

Trump first asked the appeals court in mid-May, before he was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, to eliminate the gag order that has restricted Trump from making comments about members of the jury, witnesses, court staff and prosecutors.

Trump repeatedly railed against the gag order throughout the trial, which lasted about a month and a half. The former president was found to have violated the order mutiple times, which led to Merchan fining Trump $10,000 and threatening to put him in jail if it happened again.

In early June, Trump attorney Todd Blanche sent a letter to Merchan requesting that he terminate the gag order, arguing that “because the trial has concluded, the stated bases for the gag order no longer exist.” The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, opposed the request by Trump’s legal team.

The jury in the case found Trump guilty on May 30 of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, which marked the first time a former U.S. president was convicted of a crime.

Following the conviction, Trump may have further violated the gag order by making comments about two witnesses in the case: Robert Costello, who testified for the defense, and Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness and Trump’s former lawyer, though Trump didn’t explicitly name him.

The former president is scheduled to be sentenced in the case on July 11. On June 10, he met virtually with a New York probation officer for a pre-sentencing interview.

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The effort is led by Massad Boulos, whose son married Tiffany Trump, the former president’s younger daughter, two years ago. Boulos, a Lebanese-born businessman, is now using his connections in the Arab American community and meeting with its leaders in Michigan, home to many Arab American Democrats who are disenchanted with Biden.

But any apparent political opportunity for Trump may be limited. Many Arab Americans remain offended by Trump’s ban, while in office, on immigration from several majority Muslim countries and other remarks they consider insulting. Trump also has criticized Biden for not being a strong enough supporter of Israel.

In interviews with The Associated Press, Boulos outlined his outreach efforts and discussed his plans. Those who have met with him shared their thoughts on whether the strategy is working.

Boulos, who is frequently overseas managing a Nigerian-based conglomerate, first became directly involved in U.S. politics in 2019 when he met Trump. At the time, his son Michael was dating Tiffany Trump.

Before the 2020 election, Boulos assisted with Arab American outreach in a minor role. His involvement has significantly expanded this year as Trump allies aim to exploit divisions within Biden’s Democratic base. Boulos is working closely with an Arab Americans for Trump group that has set up operations in Arizona and Michigan.

In May, Massad and Michael Boulos traveled to metro Detroit with Richard Grenell, a key foreign policy adviser to Trump and his former ambassador to Germany, to meet with a group of close to 40 Arab American activists from across the country.

A little over a week later, Boulos returned for a more extensive round of engagements. He conducted individual meetings with several prominent community leaders and organized larger gatherings, each drawing nearly 50 Arab American community members.

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Those who have engaged with Boulos so far are skeptical about the impact of these efforts. They note a lack of substantial evidence supporting the assertion that Trump is the better candidate for Arab Americans.

“Massad is unable to convince people to come to Trump’s side because he hasn’t offered anything substantial to the community,” said Osama Siblani, a publisher of the Arab American News in Dearborn.

Both major parties have focused on the Arab American vote due to the community’s significant population in Michigan, which is expected to play a decisive role in the presidential election.

Trump won Michigan by just over 10,000 votes in 2016. Biden retook the state for the Democrats in 2020 by a roughly 154,000-vote margin.

Michigan holds the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation, with more than 310,000 residents of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry, according to the most recent census.

More than 100,000 Michigan Democratic primary voters in February cast ballots for “uncommitted” in the presidential race, enough to pick up two delegates. In two Muslim-majority Michigan cities, including Dearborn, which holds close to 110,000 people, the “uncommitted” vote defeated Biden in the Democratic primary.

Boulos is the latest relative to rise in Trump’s political circle. The former president has a long history of putting family members and their relatives in key roles in his campaigns and at the White House.

Recently, Trump handpicked his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as the Republican National Committee’s co-chair.

During his first term, he appointed his daughter Ivanka as a senior White House adviser and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to oversee major issues such as Middle East peace, criminal justice reform and the government’s coronavirus response.

Boulos calls Trump a “family friend.” But Boulos insists that his outreach efforts so far have been “more of a personal effort to reconnect with friends.” He adds that the key messages emerging from meetings with Arab Americans are communicated to Trump and influenced a recent statement on the Middle East posted on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.

But to some attendees of the meetings, the direct connection to Trump matters little when Boulos can’t make promises on future policy.

“Family members are are fine. But at the end of the day, we have to sit down with someone who’s going to be a policymaker,” Siblani said. “And knowing Trump, only Trump can sit down and talk about his policy.”

___

Associated Press reporters Jill Colvin in Washington, Abby Sewell in Beirut, Lebanon, and Chinedu Asadu in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

The three properties under review by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which is a part of the AG’s office, include Bedminster, Pine Hill and Colts Neck.

“ABC is reviewing the impact of President Trump’s conviction on the above referenced licenses, and declines further comment at this time,” a spokesperson for the agency said.

New Jersey law states that, “No license of any class shall be issued to any person under the age of 18 years or to any person who has been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude.”

The ABC handbook defines that as “a serious crime from the viewpoint of society in general and usually contains elements of dishonesty, fraud or depravity.”

Trump was convicted last month of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to a porn star during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election. Trump maintains he hasn’t done anything wrong and expected file an appeal after his July 11 sentencing.

In a statement the Trump Organization said there’s nothing to review because the liquor license is not his.

“President Trump is not the holder of any liquor license in New Jersey, and he is not an officer or director of any entity that holds a liquor license in New Jersey — or anywhere in the United States for that matter. Any review of our liquor licenses will confirm this,” the statement said, before referring to the golf courses as “some of the most iconic properties in the world.”

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Trump has waded into Senate, House and gubernatorial primaries in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina as he aims to further demonstrate his influence among the GOP base and shape the future of the party, NBC News reports. Tuesday’s primaries also come less than two weeks after Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in the New York hush money case. 

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has notably sought to shore up two GOP members of Congress from South Carolina who are facing conservative challengers.

He is backing Rep. Nancy Mace, who had previously been critical of Trump, as she faces a well-funded primary opponent in attorney Catherine Templeton. After initially calling for the GOP to move on from Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Mace won over her 2022 primary challenger, Katie Arrington, who had Trump’s endorsement.

Mace went on to ardently support Trump in the 2024 presidential primary and won his endorsement for re-election. While Trump’s support is coveted in GOP primaries, he lost Mace’s Charleston-area 1st Congressional District to Nikki Haley in February while winning the state’s primary overall. 

Mace drew the ire of some Republicans after voting to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last year. Templeton has support from McCarthy, including donations from his leadership PAC, and she said that she asked the former California congressman to help her raise campaign cash.

Outside groups tied to McCarthy allies have also hit the airwaves to attack Mace, while the conservative Club for Growth Action has launched ads to boost Mace, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. Winning for Women Action Fund, a group that supports GOP women candidates and backed Mace in 2022, is now supporting Templeton. Longtime Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., also endorsed Templeton last week over his House colleague.   

It’s possible this primary might not end on Tuesday. Mace, Templeton and Marine veteran Bill Young are on the ballot, meaning the race could be pushed to a June 25 runoff if no candidate wins a majority of the primary vote.

Trump has backed another incumbent facing a primary challenge: South Carolina Rep. William Timmons in the 4th District, which includes heavily evangelical parts of the state in Greenville and Spartanburg. 

Timmons is facing state Rep. Adam Morgan, who chairs the Freedom Caucus in the South Carolina state House and has endorsements from hard-right members of Congress such as Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good of Virginia.

Timmons has touted Trump’s endorsement in the race, launching an ad featuring the former president speaking directly to the camera to boost the three-term congressman. Timmons, who narrowly avoided a primary runoff in 2022, has had some help on the airwaves in this race from Defend American Jobs, a group tied to the cryptocurrency industry, and an outside group called America Leads Inc.

Timmons’ opponent in the 2022 primary, pastor Mark Burns, won almost a quarter of the vote. But Burns is now running with Trump’s endorsement in the open 3rd District race in South Carolina to replace retiring GOP Rep.

Jeff Duncan. Trump also appeared in a TV ad for Burns reportedly filmed on the evening of April 19 at Trump Tower in New York City, the same day Trump was in court for his hush money trial. 

The 3rd District race is expected to go to a runoff given the crowded primary field. 

Burns, nurse Sheri Biggs and state Rep. Stewart Jones are considered the top candidates. The race also features Kevin Bishop, a former aide to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. 

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Trump makes a last-minute pick in Nevada

Trump’s endorsement is also on the line in Nevada’s GOP Senate primary, where the winner will face Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in one of the top Senate races in the country. 

The top candidates in the crowded field are military veteran Sam Brown, who won Trump’s endorsement over the weekend, and Jeffrey Gunter, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Iceland at the end of his administration. 

Brown lost the Senate primary in the state in 2022 in an attempt to run to the right of former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, but has emerged in this race as the party-preferred pick to take on Rosen. He’s sought to soften his stance on abortion amid his wife’s decision to share how getting an abortion affected her life.

Gunter has played up his service in the Trump administration and tried to label Brown as insufficiently conservative. Gunter calls himself “110% pro-Trump,” a message that could be blunted by Trump’s late decision to put his thumb on the scale for his opponent.

Gunter has also run brutal attacks on the airwaves, including one that calls Brown “the newest creature to emerge from the swamp.” That ad colorizes the scars on Brown’s face he has after suffering severe burns in a life-threatening explosion while serving in Afghanistan. 

Brown has far and away been the biggest fundraiser in the race, outraising Gunter $7.1 million to $3.3 million while outspending him $4.6 million to $3 million as of May 22. But Gunter has outspent him on the airwaves 3-to-1. 

The endorsement may be muted by the fact that Trump waited until the weekend before the primary to announce his pick in a state that largely votes by mail. Plus, Brown had already been seen as the favorite. 

Further down the ballot, Trump has endorsed former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee in the competitive 4th District to take on Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford. Democratic Reps. Susie Lee in the 3rd District and Dina Titus in the 1st District will also learn their GOP opponents on Tuesday, but Trump has not endorsed in either of those contests.

Trump and a VP contender take opposite sides

In North Dakota, Republican primary voters effectively are choosing a new governor after GOP Gov. Doug Burgum decided not to run for re-election. The state hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since the 1988 election and Trump won it in 2020 by more than 40 percentage points.

The GOP primary has been a contentious one between the state’s sole member of Congress, Rep. Kelly Armstrong, and Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller. Armstrong has the backing of Trump and both of the state’s U.S. senators, while Burgum, who Trump is considering as a running mate, is supporting Miller. 

While Burgum recently downplayed the idea he and Trump are on opposite sides, the race has gotten chippy. 

In a recent ad, Miller took a not-so-veiled shot at her top opponent by criticizing “self-serving politicians,” and saying: “No one gave me a ladder to get there. Climbing the ladder is what entitled politicians do, and they’ll step on anyone to come out on top.” 

Meanwhile, Armstrong’s campaign ran an ad warning that Miller has “way too many red flags,” criticizing her for a handful of small donations in the past to Democrats. 

State Sen. Merrill Piepkorn is the only Democrat running for governor and will face off against the winner of the GOP primary. 

Armstrong’s bid leaves his at-large House seat open, giving North Dakotans another statewide primary to decide on Tuesday’s ballot. The top candidates are state Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, who is endorsed by Trump, Burgum and GOP Sen. John Hoeven; former state Rep. Rick Becker, a former plastic surgeon backed by conservative figures like Ron and Rand Paul, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good and the Club for Growth; and Alex Balazs, a veteran who has the state party’s endorsement. 

Most of the oxygen has been taken up by Becker and Fedorchak, the top fundraising candidates in the race and those whose allies have dominated the airwaves. 

The Club for Growth has spent more than $700,000 on the airwaves in the race, largely blasting Fedorchak. But the group canceled its ad buys after Trump’s endorsement, and Fedorchak’s allies have largely matched the club’s spending while lobbing attacks against Becker. 

Meanwhile, in Maine, Trump issued an endorsement in the GOP primary for the competitive 2nd District, where Rep. Jared Golden is one of five Democrats running for re-election in a district Trump carried in 2020. The former president backed state Rep. Austin Theriault, a former NASCAR driver.

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Voters in Ohio will send a new member to Congress in a special election for the seat vacated by former GOP Rep. Bill Johnson earlier this year.

Republican state Sen. Michael Rulli is the favorite to serve out the remainder of the term in Ohio’s 6th District, which Johnson won by 35 points in 2022 and Trump won by almost 30 points in 2020, according to data compiled by Daily Kos Elections. His state Senate district is in the Youngstown area, which is part of the congressional district, and his family owns grocery stores in the area. 

Democrats have nominated Michael Kripchak, an Army veteran and retired police officer. But Rulli’s been the overwhelming leader in fundraising in the deep-red district. A GOP victory here would help pad Republicans’ slim majority in the House. 

Special elections in these kinds of districts are typically low-turnout affairs. But all eyes may be on this area again in the fall, even if the congressional district isn’t expected to change hands. That’s because the Youngstown area will be key for Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in his attempt to win re-election in a year Trump is expected to hold the state at the top of the ticket.

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The former president was quizzed by a New York City probation officer for a report, required by law, that trial judge Juan M. Merchan can use to help determine Trump’s punishment when he is sentenced July 11 in his hush money criminal case.

Monday’s interview was conducted privately by video conferencing. Under state law, the resulting report — which may also include information about Trump’s conviction, his social, family and employment history, and his education and economic status — will remain confidential unless the judge authorizes its public release.

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Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors will be provided copies, but that doesn’t typically happen until just before sentencing. Both sides can also submit their own paperwork to Merchan making the case for how they feel Trump should be punished.

Merchan has discretion to impose a wide range of punishments following Trump’s May 30 conviction for falsifying business records to cover up a potential sex scandal, ranging from probation and fines to up to four years in prison.

After declining to testify at the trial, Trump was required by law to participate in Monday’s presentencing interview — doing so by video from his residence at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, with his lawyer Todd Blanche by his side.

The arrangement garnered complaints of special treatment for a famous defendant, but city officials contended that was not the case and said such accommodations are available to anyone subject to a presentencing interview.

Typically, people convicted of crimes in New York meet with probation officials face-to-face for their required presentence interviews and aren’t allowed to have lawyers with them. After Blanche balked about Trump being made to answer questions alone, Merchan granted the defense lawyer permission to sit in on Trump’s interview.

The city’s public defenders on Monday criticized what they said were “special arrangements” for Trump and urged the probation department to “ensure that all New Yorkers, regardless of income, status, or class, receive the same pre-sentencing opportunities.”

“All people convicted of crimes should be allowed counsel in their probation interview, not just billionaires,” four of the city’s public defender organizations said in a statement. “This is just another example of our two-tiered system of justice.”

“Pre-sentencing interviews with probation officers influence sentencing, and public defenders are deprived of joining their clients for these meetings. The option of joining these interviews virtually is typically not extended to the people we represent either,” said the statement from the Legal Aid Society, Bronx Defenders, New York County Defender Services and Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem.

A spokesperson for the city, which runs the probation department, said defendants have had the option of conducting their presentencing interviews by video since before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. Ivette Dávila-Richards, a deputy press secretary for Mayor Eric Adams, said all defendants can also request to have their lawyers present for the interviews, as long as the judge in their case signs off.

“Trump has not been given any special treatment,” Dávila-Richards said. “He is being treated as any defendant convicted of a crime. It’s just since he’s so high-profile, everyone is making it bigger than what it is.”

A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for the state court system.

Presentence reports are designed to assist a trial judge in determining an appropriate sentence for a person convicted of a crime. Such reports are typically prepared by a probation officer, a social worker or a psychologist working for the probation department who interviews the defendant and possibly that person’s family and friends, as well as people affected by the crime.

Along with a defendant’s personal history and criminal record, they often contain a sentencing recommendation. The interview is also a chance for a defendant to say why they think they deserve a lighter punishment, and the city’s probation department encourages defendants to provide documentation that they believe would assist in the process.

A jury convicted Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. She claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has vowed to appeal his conviction — though by law he must wait until after he is sentenced to do so. He says he is innocent of any crime and says the case was brought to hurt his chances to regain the White House.

The pre-sentencing probation interview will be done over a special virtual network with added security measures, and the interviewer will be a female, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. The call is not expected to be held over Zoom, those sources added.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was convicted last month on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the historic case. The probation interview is required by the court as part of the former president’s pre-sentencing report.

Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the hush money case, permitted Blanche to be present for the probation interview after prosecutors did not object. The Trump defense team is scheduled to submit their sentencing recommendation on June 13.

The former president is scheduled to be sentenced for all 34 felony counts in New York on July 11, days before the Republican National Convention begins.

Some legal experts noted that holding a probation interview over a video conference call is unusual but having the former president in a New York probation would also be unprecedented.

Martin Horn, former commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections and Probation, told NBC News, “it is highly unusual for a pre-sentence investigation interview to be done over Zoom,” but acknowledged that an in-person visit by Trump to the probation office would be “very disruptive.”

“But you can argue that Trump’s appearance at the probation office on the 10th floor of the Criminal Court Building in Manhattan where his trial took place, with Secret Service and press following him, would be very disruptive to the probation office and unfair to other defendants who might not want to be identified,” he said. “So in the end, this might be better for the probation officer.”

Horn noted that the typical purpose of a probation interview is to obtain information on Trump’s social and criminal history, financial resources, history of mental health, physical or addiction issues as well as to assess his living situation.

Trump could also be asked if he is associating with anyone with a criminal record because he cannot associate with them if he is placed on probation, Horn said. The probation officer may also want to interview others in Trump’s home afterward. Although officers typically fulfill their inquiries in one session, there could be follow-up interviews. The probation officer will then write a report and deliver it to Merchan.

The former president is facing anywhere from probation to up to four years in prison. Some legal experts have argued Trump is unlikely to face imprisonment due to his age, lack of a criminal record and other factors.

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Duncan Levin, a former Manhattan prosecutor turned defense attorney, said the prosecution is likely to ask for jail time.

Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, will be present to ensure no questions put his client in legal jeopardy, Levin said. Although the hearing may seem like an unnecessary step due to Trump being one of the most vetted public figures, it is the court’s way of judging who he is beyond what came to light during the trial. 

“It is unlikely to move the needle because the judge knows so much about his background,” Levin said, referring to the probation hearing.

Levin also pointed to Merchan’s gag order against Trump after he attacked members of his family and the past jail sentence of Michael Cohen, Trump’s self-described former fixer who acted as the prosecution’s star witness, for a series of federal charges, including lying to Congress.

“To the extent that an E felony is punishable by jail, this case screams out for jail time, he has shown no remorse and has been held in contempt 10 times, but the judge warned him if he breaks the gag order I will send you to jail and then he did it again several times,” Levin said. “And subverting the election process is as serious a records violation as has ever come through the New York courts.”

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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg agreed Friday to testify before what’s likely to be a hostile, Republican-controlled congressional subcommittee, but likely not until after former President Donald Trump is sentenced in July.

The House Judiciary Committee chairman, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, wrote Bragg in late May after Trump’s conviction in his hush money trial, accusing him of having conducted a “political prosecution” and requesting his testimony at a hearing June 13.

In a reply letter, the Manhattan district attorney’s general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, said the prosecutor’s office was “committed to voluntary cooperation.”

That cooperation, it added, including making Bragg, a Democrat, available to testify “at an agreed-upon date.” But the letter said the date picked by Jordan presented “presents various scheduling conflicts.”

It noted that the Trump prosecution is not yet finished. Trump, who was convicted of falsifying records to cover up hush money paid to a porn actor during the 2016 presidential campaign, is scheduled to be sentenced July 11. Before then, prosecutors will be making recommendations to a judge about what kind of punishment Trump deserves.

“The trial court and reviewing appellate courts have issued numerous orders for the purpose of protecting the fair administration of justice in People v. Trump, and to participate in a public hearing at this time would be potentially detrimental to those efforts,” the letter said.

Bragg’s office asked for an opportunity to discuss an alternative date with the subcommittee and get more information about “the scope and purpose of the proposed hearing.”

Jordan has also asked for testimony from Matthew Colangelo, one of the lead prosecutors in the Trump case. Bragg’s office didn’t rule that out, but said in the letter that it would “evaluate the propriety” of allowing an assistant district attorney to testify publicly about an active prosecution.

Jordan, an Ohio Republican, has proposed withholding federal funding from any entity that attempts to prosecute a former president. He has also railed against what he’s described as the “weaponization of the federal government.”

His committee successfully battled before to get a deposition from one former prosecutor who worked on Trump’s case, Mark Pomerantz, over Bragg’s initial objections. That deposition, however, yielded little, with Pomerantz declining to answer many questions on the grounds that doing so could potentially open him up to a criminal prosecution for disclosing secret grand jury testimony.

That is now a bit of a problem, since the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was recently convicted on 34 felony counts.

“The state committee will not support or promote any candidate for elective office who … is a convicted felon,” read the rules, which govern everything from party meetings to how delegates must vote at national conventions.

On social media, the party does technically appear to be following the rule — there are no mentions of Donald Trump on the Vermont GOP’s Twitter or Facebook pages in the days since the former president’s historic guilty verdict in his hush money case — but the party’s social media typically talks only about local candidates and presidential candidates who visit the state.

The rule has been on the books since at least 2013, according to an archived version of the rules, but by early 2022, the party appears to have amended their rules.

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According to the Internet Archive, the posted rules were changed by March 2022 to allow the state committee to exempt a candidate from the rule by majority vote.

It’s unclear if such a rule will affect how Vermont’s GOP delegates vote at the Republican National Convention in July.

Former U.N Ambassador Nikki Haley won all of Vermont’s delegates but suspended her campaign in March; she has since endorsed Trump. The party rules dictate that delegates to the RNC are not bound if a candidate withdraws or suspends their campaign.

The Republican National Committee and Paul Dame, chair of the Vermont Republican Party, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In 2022, when Trump announced his bid for the presidency, Dame said in a statement that he did not believe Trump was the right choice for the party.

“I believe that the best thing for the future of the party is for other qualified and accomplished Republicans to join the primary to give Republican voters a better choice in the 2024 election,” he said.

In a statement, the Democratic National Committee suggested Vermont Republicans instead support President Joe Biden in November.

“We already knew Donald Trump was a threat to the American people and our democracy, but according to the Vermont GOP’s own rules, Donald Trump isn’t even eligible to receive their support,” Deputy Communications Director Abhi Rahman said. “We look forward to the Vermont Republican Party supporting Joe Biden this November — the only candidate with a path to 270 that has not been convicted of a felony.”

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Trump’s gun license for New York City had been suspended upon his indictment, the spokesperson said.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the expected revocation, which was first reported by CNN.

Gun licenses are often revoked after convictions in New York.

It is unclear when the former president has last held a gun, but his gun license for New York City was active at the time of his indictment in the hush money case in March 2023, according to the NYPD spokesperson.

He has been under Secret Service protection since 2015, when he became the Republican nominee for president.

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A Georgia appeals court on Wednesday halted the criminal election case against Donald Trump in the state pending the outcome of his bid to disqualify the district attorney prosecuting the former president.

The order by the Georgia Court of Appeals all but guarantees that Trump and eight co-defendants in the case will not stand trial before the November presidential election, where Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.

The appeals court said it would hear arguments on Oct. 4 on Trump’s effort to boot Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case.

Trump is appealing a decision by Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee to allow Willis to remain on the case after her romantic relationship with a top prosecutor in the case came to light.

The appeals court must rule on the question by March 14, 2025, according to the court’s website.

Trump and the other defendants are charged with crimes related to their attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden in Georgia after the popular vote.

The appeals court order Wednesday halting the case also applies to Rudy Giuliani, David Shafer, Robert Cheeley, Michael Roman, Mark Meadows, Cathy Latham, Jeffrey Clark and Harrison Floyd.

Trump was found guilty in New York state court last Thursday of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush money payment by his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election to buy her silence about an alleged sexual tryst with Trump.

Trump is due to be sentenced in that case on July 11 in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The crash happened around noon on Sunday on Staten Island, the Fire Department said.

Donna Eiden, who had been living in the bus with her husband, Rocky Granata, and their cat, Missy, told the Staten Island Advance that she was sleeping inside the parked vehicle when when it began to roll along Hylan Boulevard, crashing into signs and poles in its path.

Photos of the crash’s aftermath show the side of the bus ripped to shreds and Trump signs scattered about.

“That’s our life, we live in it; we travel in it. I have my daughter’s ashes in it,” Eiden told the Advance. “It’s our business. It’s our life.”

Eiden had to be extracted from the wrecked vehicle, firefighters said. She did not require medical treatment.

The bus had been a frequent presence at Trump rallies around the country before it crashed.

Former President Donald Trump‘s campaign debuted an official account on TikTok on Saturday night, the social media platform facing a potential ban in the U.S.

“It’s my honor,” Trump said in his first TikTok post under the handle “@realdonaldtrump,” followed by a montage of him waving to crowds at a Saturday Ultimate Fighting Championship show. That post received 1.5 million likes within 10 hours of going online.

Trump’s TikTok rollout came as his own social media company, Trump Media, took a financial tumble in the wake of the historic verdict that convicted the former president on 34 felony counts in his Manhattan hush money trial.

Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social trading under the DJT ticker, was down over 5% at market close on Friday, the day after Trump’s conviction, with shares priced at $49. Immediately following Trump’s conviction on Thursday, the stock was down roughly 15% in extended trading hours.

Trump launched Truth Social in early 2022 as an alternative, “non-woke” social media platform after he was banned from sites like Twitter and Facebook following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Since then, Trump Media has gone public and the former president now holds a 65% stake in the company.

Truth Social did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment about Trump’s move to TikTok.

Trump is several months later than his Democratic opponent, President Joe Biden, whose reelection campaign launched on TikTok in February. But the presumptive Republican presidential nominee already had over 2 million followers on Sunday, outpacing the Biden campaign’s near 340,000.

The disparity in those follower counts is typical for social media accounts directly attached to a specific candidate, which generally tend to outperform accounts associated with a campaign. For example, as of Sunday, Trump’s direct Truth Social account, “@realDonaldTrump” had over 7 million followers, while his campaign account, “@TeamTrump” had 427,000.

“We refuse to cede any ground to Biden and the Democrats,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to NBC News on Sunday. “We will get President Trump’s winning message to every voter possible. He has already gained significant ground with young voters and this is another way to reach them.”

Both candidates joined TikTok despite previously vocalizing national security concerns about the app.

In April, Biden signed into law a foreign aid package with a clause to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or else the platform would face a national ban in the U.S.

During his administration, Trump also said he would try to ban TikTok, though he has since flipped that stance. Still, he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in a March interview that he believes TikTok could threaten U.S. national security.

“I’m under a gag order, nasty gag order,” the former president said Friday while speaking to reporters at Trump Tower. Referring to star prosecution witness Michael Cohen, Trump said: “I’m not allowed to use his name because of the gag order.”

But, despite saying he believes he’s still subject to the order banning comments about witnesses and others connected to his case, Trump again lashed out at his former lawyer-turned-courtroom foe.

Without naming Cohen, Trump called him “a sleazebag,” using the same language that the Manhattan district attorney’s office flagged before the trial as a possible violation.

“Everybody knows that. Took me a while to find out,” Trump added during a 33-minute speech in which he fumed against the guilty verdict and repeated unfounded claims that his rival, President Joe Biden, had influenced the prosecution.

Trump was convicted Thursday of 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. She claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 11.

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Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said Friday that it was his understanding that the gag order would be lifted when the trial ended with a verdict, because that’s how prosecutors framed their request when they sought the restrictions back in February.

But, Blanche said, he thinks Trump is still trying to be careful because it isn’t clear to him whether that’s actually happened. During the trial, Judge Juan M. Merchan held Trump in contempt of court, fined him $10,000 for violating the gag order and threatened to put him in jail if he did it again.

“I don’t want President Trump to violate the gag order,” Blanche said. “I don’t think it applies anymore. I feel like the trial is over and it shouldn’t.”

“It’s a little bit of the theater of the absurd at this point, right? Michael Cohen is no longer a witness in this trial,” Blanche added. “The trial is over. The same thing with all the other witnesses. So, we’ll see. I don’t mean that in any way as being disrespectful of the judge and the process. I just want to be careful and understand when it no longer applies.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the state court system said: “The order is part of the court record that has been made publicly available and it speaks for itself.” The statement didn’t say what part of the order it meant, though in issuing the order, Merchan noted that prosecutors had sought the restrictions “for the duration of the trial.”

A message seeking comment was left for the Manhattan DA’s office.

Merchan imposed the gag order on March 26, a few weeks before the start of the trial, after prosecutors raised concerns about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s propensity to attack people involved in his cases. It barred him from publicly commenting about witnesses, jurors and others connected to his hush money case.

Merchan later expanded it to prohibit comments about his own family after Trump made social media posts attacking the judge’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant, and raised false claims about her.

Trump’s use of the term “sleazebag” to describe Cohen just before the trial rankled prosecutors, but was not considered a gag order violation by the judge. Merchan declined to sanction Trump for an April 10 social media post, which referred to Cohen and Daniels, another key prosecution witness, by that insult.

The judge said at the time that Trump’s contention that he was responding to previous posts by Cohen that were critical of him “is sufficient to give” him pause as to whether prosecutors met their burden in demonstrating that the post was out of bounds.

A state appeals court this month rejected Trump’s request to lift some or all of the gag order during the trial, finding that Merchan properly determined Trump’s public statements “posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses.”

The state’s mid-level appeals court ruled that “Merchan properly weighed” Trump’s free speech rights against the “historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm.”

__

Associated Press reporter Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

“I was shocked at how he took the verdict,” Blanche said. “He just stood there and just kind of took it. And I think had a lot of appropriate solemnness for the moment that made me very proud to be sitting next to him when it, when it was happening,” said Blanche, adding that he thought Trump was still handling himself well on Friday, the day after the verdict, even as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee railed that the trial was unfair.

“He’s not happy about it, but there’s no defendant in the history of our justice system who’s happy about a conviction the day after. But I think he knows there’s a lot of fight left and there’s a lot of opportunity to fix this and that’s what we’re going to try to do,” said Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney in the New York case and his classified documents federal criminal case in Florida.

A jury of a dozen New Yorkers convicted Trump on all counts of falsifying business records, a felony punishable by either incarceration, probation or a fine. As the foreman read the verdict, Trump shook his head slightly, but didn’t vent his frustration until he left the courtroom. Trump has vowed to appeal.

Donald Trump May 31

FactCheck: Q&A on Trump's criminal conviction

Donald Trump May 31

Trump may have violated the hush money gag order while ripping his guilty verdict

Speaking to reporters Friday, Trump portrayed himself as a victim of a “rigged” trial, which he claimed was orchestrated by Democrats to stop his presidential campaign. Afterward, President Joe Biden said it was “reckless,” “dangerous” and “irresponsible for anyone to say this is rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”

Blanche pushed back on Biden’s comments, saying it was natural for Trump to believe the law was being used unfairly against him. He cited the three other criminal cases pending against Trump: two cases in Georgia and Washington where he is accused of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the one in Florida, where he is charged with illegally possessing classified records after he left the White House.

“I believe in the justice system, and I always will. And I don’t think that that one case should change anybody’s view,” said Blanche, a former federal prosecutor who left his job at an elite law firm to represent Trump. “But if you were Donald J. Trump and you have four indictments … you don’t think you would say you thought it was rigged? OK.”

“I think it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, that’s dangerous. Just keep on showing up at your four indicted cases, sir. Stop saying it’s rigged.’ You know. ‘Nothing to see here. Totally normal.’ I don’t think it’s dangerous. I think it makes the system better,” Blanche said.

The jury reached its verdict around 4:20 p.m. on Thursday, just as it appeared deliberations were going to be stretching into a third day. Just a few minutes earlier, Judge Juan M. Merchan had returned to the courtroom to announce that, in lieu of a decision, he’d be sending jurors home for the evening at 4:30 p.m.

“I’m a trial attorney and I’ve had a lot of trials and I had a lot of verdicts. And this one was by far the most kind of surprising in the timing of it,” Blanche said. “We were all ready to go home. I think it was pretty clear that they were going to keep on working. There hadn’t been any notes. The first note was a pretty complicated one about testimony, and then asking to have the charge read back to them. So that’s a jury that’s kind of in it for the long haul.”

Blanche and Trump were having a pleasant conversation as they sat at the defense table waiting out what they thought were the last few minutes of the court day.

“We were kind of getting our minds right,” Blanche said. “Having a jury deliberate is stressful for everybody involved, but for sure for President Trump. And so we’re trying to get his mind right, that everything was proceeding like it should. And then the judge said we have a verdict.”

Asked about his handling of the case, Blanche said the defense team had done its best.

On Trump’s decision not to testify, Blanche said that decision ultimately fell to the former president.

“He definitely wanted to testify,” Blanche said. But he said they knew that prosecutors were going to be able to cross examine Trump on areas “that are very complicated,” because they are the subject of legal appeals.

“There would have been a lot of sideshows if he were to testify that would have, I think, made it a challenge for him,” Blanche said. “He was elected president and he’s running again, and so he obviously connects with people and connects with voters, and I think certainly can connect with a jury as well. But it wasn’t quite as simple as that in reaching that decision.”

Among the things Trump could have been asked about by prosecutors were a $455 million judgment pending against him in a fraud lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general and other judgments against him in lawsuits brought by E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexual assault.

Blanche acknowledged there was a chance Trump might be sentenced to jail time.

“On the one hand, it would be extraordinary to send a 77-year-old to prison for a case like this. A first-time offender who was also president of United States, I mean, I think almost unheard of,” Blanche said.

On the other hand, Blanche said, “this is a very highly publicized case” in which some might argue Trump deserves a harsher punishment because he faces charges elsewhere. “So it’s going to be a very, I think, contentious sentencing where we’re going to obviously argue strenuously for a non-incarceratory sentence.”

Trump’s sentencing is scheduled for July 11.

The unprecedented conviction raises questions about what’s next for the 77-year-old man who is in line to become the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2024.

What are the next steps in the case?

Sentencing and an appeal are up next in this case.

Sentencing by Justice Juan Merchan is scheduled for July 11. Before that date, a probation officer or someone in that department will interview Trump, and potentially others involved in the case or connected to Trump, and prepare a pre-sentence report for the judge. The report includes the personal history and criminal record of the defendant, and it recommends what sentence the defendant should receive, according to the New York State Unified Court System.

“The pre-sentence interview is a chance for the defendant to try to make a good impression and explain why he or she deserves a lighter punishment,” the state court system explains.

Trump’s lawyers have to wait until after the sentencing to appeal the conviction. First, Trump’s lawyers will file motions before the judge “in a couple weeks” saying why they found the trial to be “unfair,” Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche told CNN hours after the guilty verdict.

Cheryl Bader, a clinical associate professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, said these motions are typical when a defendant is convicted. The defense attorneys will ask the judge to overturn the jury’s conviction. “It’s rarely, rarely granted, and I don’t think there’s a chance that will happen in this case,” she told us in a phone interview.

Blanche told CNN that if the motions aren’t successful, “then as soon as we can appeal, we will. And the process in New York is there’s a sentencing, and then — and then we appeal from there.”

Bader, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, walked us through the appeals process. “The case is considered completed at sentencing,” she said. “At that point, his lawyers file a notice of appeal … letting the court know that he intends to appeal.”

At that point, they will also request a “stay” on the sentence, meaning a pause on imposing the sentence while the case is being appealed.

This appeal goes to the Appellate Division, First Judicial Department in Manhattan. The appeals court doesn’t retry the case. “They’re not going to substitute their judgment on the facts for the jury’s judgment,” Bader explained. Instead, “they’re looking for where there was error that would have led to an improper prosecution or an unfair trial.”

The appeals process would take several months to a year, she said. After the notice of appeal is given, the record of the case is gathered, including trial transcripts, the indictment, pretrial motions, evidentiary rulings, jury selection and instructions, and more. Trump could also appeal the sentencing. The lawyers need to write their arguments for all of the issues they’re objecting to, and that takes time, Bader said.

And then the appeals court needs to consider the case and write a decision on it.

If Trump ultimately isn’t successful at the appellate level, he can appeal to the highest court in New York state, which is called the Court of Appeals. But the court decides whether or not it takes the case.

After such an appeal to the highest state court, the case would be over — unless Trump tries to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But there has to be a U.S. constitutional issue for that. “I don’t see one,” Bader said, but perhaps Trump’s lawyers would try to make an argument.

Donald Trump May 30

Trump has been convicted. Here's what happens next

Donald Trump May 31

Trump delivers rambling response to guilty verdict, falsely blasting ‘rigged trial'

What punishment could Trump face? Will he go to prison?

Whether Trump is sentenced to any time in prison is up to the judge.

Each of the 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, a class E felony, carries a maximum sentence of up to four years in prison. The judge could decide to impose the sentences consecutively or simultaneously. However, under New York law, 20 years is the maximum prison time that Trump could get — not 187 years, as Trump falsely claimed in his May 31 remarks.

Norman Eisen, a CNN legal analyst and a senior fellow in governance studies for the Brookings Institution, said that “in the most serious” cases of business records falsification in New York that he studied, “a sentence of imprisonment was routinely imposed.” Trump’s case “is the most serious one in NY history,” he wrote on X, predicting that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin “Bragg will likely ask for incarceration & Merchan will consider it.”

While possible, Bader, with Fordham’s School of Law, told us she doesn’t think incarceration will happen.

For a first-time convicted felon, with a low-level, nonviolent felony and a person of advanced age, “under any circumstance like that, there’d be a relatively low chance of incarceration,” she said.

“On the other hand, I could see the prosecutor arguing that here’s a man who has shown disrespect for the court system and the rule of law and has violated the court’s orders on numerous occasions. He is not remorseful. And that in order to promote general deterrence, he needs to be punished,” she said in describing a possible argument from the prosecutor.

Bader said any incarceration sentence “would be only a token amount of time to make the point that Trump is not above the law.” Other sentencing possibilities include probation or a “conditional discharge” with conditions other than incarceration or probation.

The “simplest” option might be for the judge to fine Trump, she said.

Donald Trump May 30

See the final jury verdict form from Trump's hush money trial

Donald Trump May 30

From a 2006 affair to a guilty verdict: A timeline of events in Trump's hush money case

Can Trump vote in the 2024 election?

Yes, Trump can vote as long as he is not in jail on Election Day, which this year is on Nov. 5.

Trump owns homes in New York and Florida, but in 2019 he changed his primary residence to Florida. However, Florida law does not apply in Trump’s case because he was convicted in New York. Instead, New York law applies.

“If you were convicted outside Florida, your voting rights are governed by the state where you were convicted,” as the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida explains on its website.

In 2021, New York state enacted a law that “restores the right to vote for a person convicted of a felony upon release from incarceration, regardless of if they are on parole or have a term of post-release supervision,” the New York State Board of Elections says. “If a convicted felon is not incarcerated, they are eligible to register to vote.”

Elections Jan 30

Can a convicted felon run for president? It's happened before

Donald Trump May 30

What was Trump found guilty of? A closer look at the 34 felony charges

Can a felon run for president, hold office?

Yes. According to Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, there are three qualifications to serve as president: He or she must be at least 35 years old upon taking office, a U.S. resident for at least 14 years and a “natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States.”

“These qualifications are understood to be exclusive,” Josh Chafetz, a Georgetown University law professor, told us last year when we were writing about Trump’s federal indictment related to allegations of mishandling sensitive classified documents after he left office. “Anyone can be president so long as they meet the constitutional qualifications and do not trigger any constitutional disqualifications.”

“Someone can run for president while under indictment or even having been convicted and serving prison time,” said Chafetz, who pointed to the example of Eugene V. Debs, the late labor leader, who, in 1920, ran for president from prison on the Socialist Party ticket and got almost 1 million votes.

There is an exception to that rule. The Constitution says in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that no U.S. officeholder, including the president, can serve if they are convicted of “engag[ing] in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. — something Trump has not been charged with either in this case or the three others he faces.

Six Colorado voters successfully sued in state court to prevent Trump from appearing on that state’s ballot, citing the constitutional amendment barring insurrectionists from holding federal office. But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state ruling, “[b]ecause the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.”

Donald Trump May 30

Donald Trump was convicted on felony charges. Will he go to prison?

Donald Trump May 29

Can Trump vote in November if he's convicted of a felony in New York?

Can Trump pardon himself on this conviction, if he wins?

The short answer is no.

Trump was convicted in New York for offenses in violation of state law. Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states that a president has the “[p]ower to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States.” According to Constitution Annotated, a government-sanctioned record of the interpretations of the Constitution, that means the power extends to “federal crimes but not state or civil wrongs.”

In a case decided in 1925, Ex parte Grossman, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that interpretation, writing that the Constitution’s language specifying presidential pardon power for offenses “against the United States” was “presumably to make clear that the pardon of the President was to operate upon offenses against the United States as distinguished from offenses against the States.”

The New York governor has the power to pardon Trump for his conviction of crimes under state law. That’s currently Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat. After the verdict, Republican Rep. Nick LaLota called on Hochul “to immediately announce her intention to pardon President Trump and pre-emptively commute any sentence. To not do so is to allow America to become a banana republic.” Hochul released a statement on May 30 saying, “Today’s verdict reaffirms that no one is above the law.”

“She passed peacefully this morning, and right now, none of us are quite sure how exactly we’ll move on without her,” the family statement said.

The family statement is from Michelle and Barack Obama; Craig Robinson and his wife, Kelly; and Marian Robinson’s grandchildren, Avery, Leslie, Malia, Sasha, Austin and Aaron.

Robinson became known to Americans as the country’s first grandmother after her son-in-law, Barack Obama, won the 2008 presidential election. She was a fixture in the White House during his eight years in office, though she kept a low profile. She attended holiday events, the occasional overseas trip and concerts in the East Room. But most often she was with her granddaughters, Sasha and Malia.

Having lived in Chicago her entire life, Robinson agreed to move to Washington, D.C., in 2009 to live in the White House residence and help take care of her granddaughters, who were seven and 10 years old at the time.

“I felt like this was going to be a very hard life for both of them,” she later said in a CBS interview, referring to her daughter and son-in-law. “And I was worried about their safety, and I was worried about my grandkids. That’s what got me to move to D.C.”

In their statement Friday, Robinson’s family members said she agreed to leave Chicago with “a healthy nudge.”

“We needed her. The girls needed her. And she ended up being our rock through it all,” they said.

“She relished her role as a grandmother. … And although she enforced whatever household rules we’d set for bedtime, watching TV, or eating candy, she made clear that she sided with her ‘grandbabies’ in thinking that their parents were too darn strict,” they added.  

Robinson was born in Chicago in 1937 and grew up in the city’s South Side, where she raised her daughter and son, Craig Robinson. She was married to Fraser Robinson, who died in 1991 from multiple sclerosis.

The former president once called his mother-in-law “the least pretentious person I know.” Indeed, Robinson said in the CBS interview that it was a “huge adjustment” being waited on by White House residence staff, whom she said she convinced to let her do her own laundry.

“Rather than hobnobbing with Oscar winners or Nobel laureates, she preferred spending her time upstairs with a TV tray, in the room outside her bedroom with big windows that looked out at the Washington Monument,” the family said in its statement Friday. “The only guest she made a point of asking to meet was the Pope.”

The former president credited Robinson with keeping his daughters grounded while they grew up in the White House.

“She’s down to Earth and she doesn’t understand all the fuss,” he said in an interview on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Michelle Obama was deeply close to her mother. It was Robinson who narrated the biographical video introducing her daughter at the Democratic National Convention in 2008. And after leaving the White House, Robinson said, “My saying is when I grow up, I would like to be like Michelle Obama.”

Just a few weeks ago, Michelle Obama paid tribute to her mother on Mother’s Day by announcing that an exhibit at the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago will be named after her.

“In so many ways she fostered in me a deep sense of confidence in who I was and who I could be by teaching me how to think for myself, how to use my own voice, and how to understand my own worth,” the former first lady said in a video announcement. “I simply wouldn’t be who I am today without my mom.”

The family statement released Friday said “there was and will be only one Marian Robinson,” adding, “In our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life. And we will spend the rest of ours trying to live up to her example.”

This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here:

• Neighbors shocked by arrest of 81-year-old suspected ‘serial slingshot shooter’
• Meta and OpenAI say they disrupted influence operations linked to Israeli company
• DOJ antitrust chief warns AI companies that they must fairly compensate artists

Advance Democracy, a non-profit that conducts public interest research, said there has been a high volume of social media posts containing violent rhetoric targeting New York Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, including a post with Bragg’s purported home address. The group also found posts of the purported addresses of jurors on a fringe internet message board known for pro-Trump content and harassing and violent posts, although it is unclear if any actual jurors had been correctly identified.

The posts, which have been reviewed by NBC News, appear on many of the same websites used by Trump supporters to organize for violence ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. These forums were hotbeds of threats inspired by Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, which he lost, and that the voting system was “rigged” against him. They now feature new threats echoing Trump’s rhetoric and false claims about the hush money trial, including that the judicial system is now “rigged” against him.

“Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote after Trump’s conviction on a website formerly known as “The Donald,” which was popular among participants in the Capitol attack. (That post appears to have been quickly removed by moderators.)

“We need to identify each juror. Then make them miserable. Maybe even suicidal,” wrote another user on the same forum. “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to washington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution,” wrote another user. “This s— is out of control.”

“I hope every juror is doxxed and they pay for what they have done,” another user wrote on Trump’s Truth Social platform Thursday. “May God strike them dead. We will on November 5th and they will pay!”

“War,” read a Telegram post from one chapter of the Proud Boys, the far-right group whose former chair and three other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy because of their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, just a few months after Trump infamously told the group to “stand back and stand by“ during a 2020 debate.

“Now you understand. To save your nation, you must fight. The time to respond is now. Franco Friday has begun,” another Proud Boys chapter wrote, apparently referring to fascist dictator Francisco Franco of Spain.

One Jan. 6 defendant who already served time in prison for his role in the Capitol attack also weighed in on X, posting a photo of Bragg and a photo of a noose. “January 20, 2025 traitors Get The Rope,” he wrote, referring to the date of the next presidential inauguration.

The threats fit into an ongoing pattern. An NBC News analysis of Trump’s Truth Social posts earlier this year showed that he frequently uses the platform as a megaphone to attack people involved in his legal cases — and some of his supporters have responded. When the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022, a Trump supporter who had been at the Capitol on Jan. 6 sent angry posts about the search and then attacked an FBI field office. When Trump made a social media post last June that included former President Barack Obama’s home address, a Jan. 6 rioter re-posted it and then showed up at the residence. When Trump was indicted in Georgia in August, his supporters posted the purported names and addresses of members of the grand jury. Special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, was the target of an attempted swatting on Christmas day. So, too, was U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will oversee that trial, if the Supreme Court allows it to go forward (though that could change if Trump wins in November). When Michael Fanone — the former police officer nearly killed on Jan. 6 by Trump supporters who believed the former president’s lies about the 2020 election — criticized Trump at a press conference outside the hush money trial earlier this week, his mother was swatted. When Trump and conservative media outlets spread false information about the jury instructions in the hush money case this week, threats against Merchan rolled in. 

“We are continuing to see a dangerous erosion of democratic norms,” Daniel J. Jones, president of Advance Democracy, said in a statement to NBC News. “Trump and his allies have been spreading disinformation about the trial, challenging Justice Merchan’s impartiality, and describing the entire process as ‘rigged’ for weeks. As such, it’s not a surprise that some of his most fervent supporters are now calling for doxxing and violence against jurors, the judge, and the district attorney.”

Jones said online activity has been increasing in the wake of Trump’s guilty verdict, which makes it important for elected officials to “speak out against the disinformation Trump is spreading, as well the calls for violence he’s inspiring.”

This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here:

• Neighbors shocked by arrest of 81-year-old suspected ‘serial slingshot shooter’
• Meta and OpenAI say they disrupted influence operations linked to Israeli company
• DOJ antitrust chief warns AI companies that they must fairly compensate artists

Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Trump’s commentary on the witnesses. Judge Juan Merchan’s April order barred Trump from “making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”

Trump mentioned Robert Costello, a witness who testified on Trump’s behalf, by name during his remarks at Trump Tower, and also went on at length about his former attorney Michael Cohen, a key witness whose name he did not use but was clearly the person he was referring to.

“This was a highly qualified lawyer. Now I’m not allowed to use his name because of the gag order, but you know he’s a sleazebag. Everybody knows that. Took me a while to find out,” Trump said, also pushing back on Cohen’s description of himself as a “fixer.” “He did work, but he wasn’t a fixer. He was a lawyer. You know they like to use the word fixer. He wasn’t a fixer. He was a lawyer at the time,” Trump said. 

Trump praised Costello, an attorney who was in talks to represent Cohen in 2018 and has since become a fierce Cohen critic, as a “fine man” who was mistreated by the judge when he testified.

Merchan reprimanded Costello, a veteran New York defense lawyer, outside the presence of the jury for being disrespectful on the stand, including visibly and audibly reacting to the prosecution’s objections and Merchan’s rulings. “As a witness in my courtroom, if you don’t like my rulings, you don’t say, ‘Jeez,’” Merchan told Costello. “You don’t give me side eye, and you don’t roll your eyes.” He warned him that if the behavior continued, he could be booted from the stand and have his testimony stricken from the record.

Trump also appeared to make an oblique reference to Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 and whom Cohen paid $130,000 in hush money to weeks before the 2016 election. Trump made a reference to the DA calling “salacious” people to the stand. “By the way, nothing ever happened. There was no anything,” Trump said, appearing to refer to Daniels’ claim.

news May 30

Trump Media shares tumble after Donald Trump found guilty on 34 felony counts

news May 31

Biden calls Trump response to guilty verdict ‘reckless,' ‘dangerous' at White House

news May 30

Trump has been convicted. Here's what happens next

Trump referred to the judge — who’s not covered by the gag order — as a “devil” and a “tyrant.”

Merchan fined Trump a total of $10,000 for repeated violations of the order barring him from discussing witnesses, jurors, court staff and individual prosecutors during the trial, and warned future violations could potentially land him in jail.

“Mr. Trump, it’s important to understand that the last thing I want to do is to put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president, as well,” Merchan said. The judge said that Trump’s “continued willful violations of this court’s orders threaten the administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.”

Whether the judge’s position will soften now that the testimony has concluded is unclear. One of the reasons he said he was issuing the gag order was concern Trump’s remarks could influence witnesses, which is no longer an issue. The judge had also said during the trial he might consider lifting the order in relation to Cohen because Cohen had been criticizing Trump publicly during the trial. Cohen stopped doing so after the judge’s warning but sat for an interview with MSNBC on Thursday night after the verdict.

Cohen praised the jury for finding Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records. “It’s accountability. It’s exactly what America needs right now,” Cohen said. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11.

Trump made clear in his remarks Friday that he believes the gag order is still in effect, despite testimony being concluded. “I’m under a gag order, nasty gag order,” he said at one point, adding  “I’m the leading person for president and I’m under a gag order.”

Representatives for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the state court system did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Trump supporters try to doxx jurors and post violent threats after his conviction
• Inside the long legal trail to this week’s big verdict
• Elon Musk’s X plans livestream event with Donald Trump

“Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case and it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you,” Biden told reporters at the White House, a day after a jury in New York found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts in a case stemming from the 2016 election.

He added that Trump’s “jury’s chosen the same way every jury in America’s chosen,” noted that jurors heard five weeks of evidence and reached “a unanimous verdict: They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.”

The president said Trump could appeal the case “just like everyone else has that opportunity” then pointedly said, “It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, It’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”

“Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years, and it literally is the cornerstone of America,” Biden said. “The justice system should be respected. And we should never let never allow anyone to tear it down.”

As the president left the podium after his remarks, a reporter shouted if he had any reaction to Trump calling himself a political prisoner and blaming the president directly for what’s happening to him. Biden stopped and flashed a grin, but did not answer the question.

He similarly didn’t answer when another reporter asked if he thought Trump should appear on November’s ballot.

None of the developments changed Trump’s defiant tone as he looked to galvanize supporters ahead of November. Moments after Biden spoke, Trump sent a fundraising email declaring, “I WAS JUST CONVICTED IN A RIGGED TRIAL. I AM A POLITICAL PRISONER!”

Biden was at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, marking the anniversary of the 2015 death of his grown son, Beau, from brain cancer when the jury reached its verdict on Thursday, and he offered no personal reaction to the trial at the time. But he returned to Washington on Friday for an event at the White House with the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs, and spoke to reporters about the situation in the Middle East before delivering brief remarks on Trump’s case.

In comments to reporters at his namesake tower in Manhattan earlier Friday, Trump tried to cast himself as a martyr, suggesting that if he could be convicted, “They can do this to anyone.”

“I’m willing to do whatever I have to do to save our country and save our Constitution. I don’t mind,” Trump said.

Biden for months had carefully avoided involvement in Trump’s legal drama, looking to keep from feeding into his Republican rival’s claims that his criminal woes were the result of politically motivated prosecutions. But as the New York trial concluded, Biden’s campaign became far more vocal about it.

His campaign had released a series of innuendo-laced statements that alluded to the trial to attack Trump’s policy positions, and then Biden himself quipped that he heard Trump was “free on Wednesdays” — the trial’s scheduled day off — in a video statement when he agreed to debate Trump head-to-head.

With closing arguments underway on Tuesday, Biden’s campaign even showed up outside the Manhattan courthouse with actor Robert De Niro and a pair of former police officers who responded to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection, in what it said was an effort to refocus the presidential race on the former president’s role in the riot. That decision came as the campaign felt its message about the stakes of the election was struggling to break through the intense focus on the trial.

Shortly after Thursday’s verdict, Biden’s reelection campaign sought to keep the focus on the choice confronting voters in November and the impact of a second Trump presidency.

“A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans’ freedoms and fomenting political violence – and the American people will reject it this November,” Biden spokesman Michael Tyler said in a statement.

Watch the video above for President Biden’s comments and read the latest coverage of Trump’s conviction here.

Donald Trump May 31

Trump delivers rambling response to guilty verdict, falsely blasting ‘rigged trial'

news May 30

Trump has been convicted. Here's what happens next

Trump, as defiant as ever, argued the verdict was illegitimate and driven by politics and sought to downplay the allegations underlying the case.

“It’s not hush money. It’s a nondisclosure agreement, totally legal, totally common,” he said.

In a message aimed to galvanize his supporters, he declared: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”

While the guilty verdict against him and his vow to fight appeared to motivate his base of supporters, including those who began pouring donations into his campaign, it’s unclear if any of this will help him with independent voters who will be decisive in the November election.

No former president or presumptive party nominee has ever faced a felony conviction or the prospect of prison time, and Trump is expected to keep his legal troubles central to his campaign.

He has long argued without evidence that the four indictments against him were orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden to try to keep him out of the White House. The hush money case was filed by local prosecutors in Manhattan who do not work for the Justice Department or any White House office.

In his disjointed remarks, Trump initially started attacking Biden on immigration, saying the president is failing to secure the U.S.-Mexico border while repeating much of the same dark rhetoric on immigration that he previously said in launching his 2016 campaign.

“Millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world, not just South America, from Africa, from Asia from the Middle East, and they’re coming in from jails and prisons, and they are coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums,” Trump said. “They’re coming in from all over the world into our country.”

Trump them pivoted to his criminal case, growling that he was threatened with jail time if he violated a gag order. He picked apart intricate parts of the case and trial proceedings as unfair, making false statements and misrepresentations as he did so.

news May 30

Trump has been convicted. Here's what happens next

Donald Trump May 30

From a 2006 affair to a guilty verdict: A timeline of events in Trump's hush money case

Trump said he wanted to testify but said the judge wanted to go into every detail. “I would have liked to have testified,” he said. “But you would have said something out of whack like ‘it was a beautiful sunny day,’ and it was actually raining out.”

Trump, who had the right to testify but didn’t, also tested the limits of the gag order that prohibits him from publicly critiquing witnesses including Michael Cohen, calling his former fixer, the star witness in the case, “a sleazebag.”

His son Eric Trump and daughter-in-law Lara Trump joined him, but his wife, Melania Trump, who has been publicly silent since the verdict, was not seen.

President Biden said the verdict reaffirmed the American principle that “no one is above the law.” Speaking from the White House Friday, Biden called Trump’s casting of his conviction as a political witch hunt “reckless, dangerous and irresponsible” just because he didn’t like the verdict.

“This jury was chosen the same way every jury in America has been chosen,” Biden said. “It was a process that Donald Trump’s attorney was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence — five weeks — and after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict.”

Outside, on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, supporters gathered across the street were flying a giant red “TRUMP OR DEATH” sign that was flapping in front of a high-end boutique. A small group of protesters held up signs that said “Guilty” and “Justice matters.”

On Friday morning, his campaign announced it had raised $34.8 million as donations poured in after the verdict. That’s more than $1 million for each felony charge and more than his politic

Trump and his campaign had been preparing for a guilty verdict for days, even as they held out hope for a hung jury. On Tuesday, Trump railed that not even Mother Teresa, the nun and saint, could beat the charges, which he repeatedly labeled as “rigged.”

His top aides on Wednesday released a memo in which they insisted a verdict would have no impact on the election, whether Trump was convicted or acquitted.

The news nonetheless landed with a jolt. Trump, his team, and reporters at the courthouse had been under the impression that the jury on Thursday would wrap up deliberations for the day at 4:30 p.m. Trump sat smiling and chatting with his lawyers as the proceedings seemed to be coming to a close.

Trump had spent the hours before the verdict was announced sequestered in the private courtroom where he had spent breaks throughout the trial, huddled with his attorneys and campaign aides, eating from a revolving lunch menu of McDonald’s, pizza, and subs.

As the jury was deciding his fate, he filled his time making calls, firing off social media missives and chatting with friends, including developer Steve Witkoff, who joined him in court, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is considered a top vice presidential contender.

In a sign that they expected deliberations to continue, Trump’s holding room was outfitted with a television Thursday, according to two people familiar with the setup who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

Instead, Merchan announced that a verdict had been reached. Thirty minutes later, Trump listened as the jury delivered a guilty verdict on every count. Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read.

His campaign fired off a flurry of fundraising appeals, and GOP allies rallied to his side. One text message called him a “political prisoner,” even though he hasn’t yet found out if he will be sentenced to prison. The campaign also began selling black “Make America Great Again” caps to reflect a “dark day in history.”

Aides reported an immediate rush of contributions so intense that WinRed, the platform the campaign uses for fundraising, crashed.

“President Trump and our campaign are immensely grateful from this outpouring of support from patriots across our country,” Trump’s senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement. “President Trump is fighting to save our nation and November 5th is the day Americans will deliver the real verdict.”

Trump has long complained that the trial limited his campaign appearances for several weeks. “I want to campaign,” he had told reporters Thursday morning before a verdict was reached.

It is unclear, however, how much Trump’s schedule will ramp up in the days ahead. He held only a handful of public campaign events as the trial unfolded, despite the fact that he had Wednesdays, as well as evenings and weekends, to do what he wished.

He’s set in the upcoming two months to have his first debate with Biden, announce a running mate and formally accept his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention.

But before he goes to Milwaukee for the RNC, Trump will have to return to court on July 11 for sentencing. He could face penalties ranging from a fine or probation up to four years in prison.

Cohen appeared Thursday evening on MSNBC in an exclusive interview.

“As we like to state, nobody is above the law, and today’s verdict demonstrates that,” Cohen said in the interview.

Cohen’s testimony was seen as pivotal in Trump’s trial and he was on the stand a number of days testifying and facing a cross-examination. The defense hammered at Cohen’s credibility and his previous lies under oath.

When asked how he was feeling after the verdict, Cohen said on MSNBC, “I guess the word is relieved. This has been six years in the making.”

Cohen said everything he said on the witness stand in 21 hours of testimony was corroborated by other witnesses and documents.

Earlier on Thursday, Cohen released a statement saying in part, “Today is an important day for accountability and the rule of law. While it has been a difficult journey for me and my family, the truth always matters.”

Trump will face Judge Juan Merchan again on July 11 for the scheduled sentencing.

The 12-person jury in New York reached its unanimous verdict after two days of deliberation, ending a heated six-week trial in which prosecutors accused Trump of orchestrating an illegal conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election.

In total, the former president was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, which could carry a punishment of up to four years in prison, fines, or probation.

But how did it all start? From an affair to a $130,000 hush money payment, here’s what to know about the case and what’s to come:

The verdict was read at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Thursday after the 12-person jury deliberated for 9.5 hours over two days.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is the first former U.S. president to be convicted of felony crimes. Sentencing has been scheduled for July 11.

“While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial, and ultimately today at this verdict, in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors — by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.

“I did my job. Our job is to follow the facts and the law without fear or favor, and that’s exactly what we did here.”

Following about the verdict, Trump said: “The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people. They know what happened here, everyone knows what happened here. … I’m a very innocent man.”

Here’s how House Speaker Mike Johnson, ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen — the prosecution’s star witness in the case — and others reacted to the landmark verdict:

Michael Cohen

“Guilty On All Counts! #Team Cohen,” Cohen posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Speaker Mike Johnson

“Today is a shameful day in American history,” Johnson said on X. “Democrats cheered as they convicted the leader of the opposing party on ridiculous charges, predicated on the testimony of a disbarred, convicted felon. This was a purely political exercise.”

The Biden campaign

“Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain. But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality,” Michael Tyler, communications director of the Biden campaign, said. “There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.

“The threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater. He is running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution, pledging to be a dictator ‘on day one’ and calling for our Constitution to be ‘terminated’ so he can regain and keep power. A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans’ freedoms and fomenting political violence — and the American people will reject it this November.”

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FactCheck: Trump's repeated claims on his New York hush money trial

Eric Trump

“May 30th, 2024 might be remembered as the day Donald J. Trump won the 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump’s son Eric said on X.

Ivanka Trump

Trump’s daughter Ivanka, meanwhile, posted an Instagram Story of what appeared to be a photo from her childhood where she’s being held by her father. She added the message “I love you dad” along with a heart emoji.

New York Attorney General Letitia James

“No one is above the law,” James wrote on X.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul

“In preparation for a verdict in this trial, I directed my Administration to closely coordinate with local and federal law enforcement and we continue to monitor the situation,” Hochul said in a statement. “We are committed to protecting the safety of all New Yorkers and the integrity of our judicial system.”

She added that the verdict “reaffirms that no one is above the law.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)

“No one is above the law,” the Senate Majority Leader wrote on X. “The verdict speaks for itself.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

“These charges never should have been brought in the first place,” the Senate Minority Leader said on X. “I expect the conviction to be overturned on appeal.”

E. Jean Carroll

Carroll, a writer who accused Trump of sexual assault and has been awarded nearly $90 million in civil judgements against the former president, posted the message “Justice!!” along with a photo of Stormy Daniels on X.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.)

“This isn’t just ridiculous. This actually erodes the confidence that Americans have in the justice system,” Scott, who’s widely viewed as the leading contender to be Trump’s VP pick, said in a video posted on X.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)

“The verdict in New York is a complete travesty that makes a mockery of our system of justice,” Rubio, who’s also considered a potential running mate for Trump, said on X. “Biden and the Trump deranged left will stop at nothing to remain in power.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)

“Today’s verdict shows how corrupt, rigged, and unAmerican the weaponized justice system has become under Joe Biden and Democrats,” Stefanik, another potential VP for Trump, said on X. “I fully support President Trump appealing this decision and look forward to a higher New York Court to deliver justice and overturn this verdict.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker

“Donald Trump is a racist, a homophobe, a grifter, and a threat to this country,” Pritzker wrote on X. “He can now add one more title to his list – a felon.”

Trump technically will not be considered a felon until sentencing.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

“This moment is a somber one for America,” the former House Speaker wrote on X. “Trial by a jury of peers is a fundamental principle of democracy, which must be respected.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

“This verdict says more about the system than the allegations. It will be seen as politically motivated and unfair, and it will backfire tremendously on the political Left,” Graham said on X. “I fear we have opened up Pandora’s box on the presidency itself.

“I expect this case to be reversed on appeal and for Donald Trump to be elected president in November.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson

“It is not easy to see a former President and the presumptive GOP nominee convicted of felony crimes; but the jury verdict should be respected,” Hutchinson, who ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, wrote on X. “An appeal is in order but let’s not diminish the significance of this verdict.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“The Democratic Party’s strategy is to beat President Trump in the courtroom rather than the ballot box. This will backfire in November. Even worse, it is profoundly undemocratic,” the independent presidential candidate said on X. “America deserves a President who can win at the ballot box without compromising our government’s separation of powers or weaponizing the courts.

“The Democrats are afraid they will lose in the voting booth, so instead they go after President Trump in the courtroom.

“I’m also running against President Trump in this election. The difference is I’m challenging him on his record.”

Jason Aldean

“Scary times in our country right now, man,” the country music star wrote in an Instagram post that featured an upside-down American flag. “When a former POTUS gets treated like this by our justice system, what does that mean for the rest of us??? If there was ever a time to speak up, ITS NOW! Make no mistake…. We are in trouble.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

The 34 counts were all on charges of falsifying business records in the first degree.

The court released the final verdict form that was used by the jury in the case and signed by Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass and defense counsel Emil Bove.

Checkmarks can be seen in the “guilty” column in rows for each of the 34 charges.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

• Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that President Joe Biden is behind the prosecution of this case. This is a New York state case, and Biden has no control over it.
• The former president has claimed that the judge in this case — Justice Juan Merchan — is “corrupt” or “conflicted,” but one of Trump’s own lawyers last year said he had “no issue … whatsoever” with Merchan.
• Trump wrongly has claimed a limited gag order — barring remarks about certain trial participants — prevented him from answering “simple questions” or criticizing the Biden administration.
• He falsely claimed that Merchan “wouldn’t let” Trump’s defense team call campaign finance expert Bradley Smith as a witness. The judge did not say Smith couldn’t testify, although he limited what Smith could potentially discuss if he testified.
• Trump wrongly said the judge wouldn’t allow an “advice of counsel” defense. Before the trial, Trump’s attorneys chose not to seek such a defense, and Merchan held them to that decision.
• He has also claimed that all legal scholars said this case “shouldn’t be brought,” and that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg himself “didn’t want to bring the case.” Bragg said he didn’t want to pursue a broader financial crimes case until it was “ready,” and there were some law experts who said the hush money case against Trump was “strong.”

The jury began its deliberations on May 29 and reached the verdict the following day. The indictment was brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. (See our Q&A on the indictment for more information.)

After the guilty verdict was revealed, Trump told reporters, “This was a rigged, disgraceful trial.” Sentencing is scheduled for July 11.

Not a Biden case

Without evidence, Trump has repeatedly claimed that President Joe Biden is responsible for the prosecution of this case. Biden has no control over state-level prosecutors.

“Make no mistake about it, I’m here because of crooked Joe Biden,” Trump claimed on May 28 in remarks to the press before closing arguments in the case. “This is purely his weaponization.” The following day, Trump said, “It was all done by Joe Biden. This judge contributed to Joe Biden.” He repeated the claim again after the guilty verdict, saying, “This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent.”

The 34-count indictment for this case was brought by Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney.

Despite his unsupported claims that Biden is behind the case, Trump has also claimed that “the federal government” looked at this case and “turned it down.” (The Federal Election Commission voted 2-2 on whether Trump violated campaign finance laws, so it couldn’t pursue any charges.)

Separately, the federal government has indicted Trump for other matters — his handling of classified documents after he left office and his attempts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 presidential election. But those cases, which Biden has denied any involvement in, have nothing to do with the New York hush-money case.

Trump’s suggestion that the judge in this case, Justice Juan Merchan, is linked to Biden rests on a $15 contribution Merchan made to Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.

As we’ve reported before, Federal Election Commission records show three small donations from Merchan to ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform, in July 2020. In addition to the $15 to Biden’s campaign, the other two donations, of $10 each, were earmarked for the voter mobilization group Progressive Turnout Project and the group’s digital ad campaign called Stop Republicans.

Reuters reported on May 17 that the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct dismissed an ethics complaint about the donations, with a caution to Merchan. Last May, an advisory ethics committee said Merchan wouldn’t need to recuse himself from the case, writing that “these modest political contributions made more than two years ago cannot reasonably create an impression of bias or favoritism in the case before the judge.”

Attacks on judge

Besides pointing to that small political contribution, Trump has made other attacks on Merchan’s credibility, claiming repeatedly, including after the verdict, that he is “corrupt” or “conflicted.” But before the trial, one of Trump’s lawyers at the time said he has “no issue … whatsoever” with Merchan overseeing the case.

In an April 2, 2023, interview with CNN, then Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina — who in January withdrew from representing the former president — said Merchan “has a very good reputation.”

Asked if he thought Merchan was biased, Tacopina said, “I have no reason to believe this judge is biased.”

According to his court bio, Merchan has been an acting justice on the New York Supreme Court since 2009. He was appointed to the Family Court for Bronx County in 2006 by then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In the past, Trump has objected to Merchan having been the judge who sentenced the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to five months in jail in a tax fraud case. At the January 2023 sentencing, Merchan said had there not been a plea deal, he would have imposed a harsher sentence than the five months, which ultimately was reduced to 100 days with good behavior. Weisselberg was released in April 2023, but sentenced to five months again, by a different judge, this April after committing perjury in the New York civil fraud trial against Trump.

Last year, Trump also said that Merchan’s daughter “worked for Kamala Harris” and “now receives money from the Biden-Harris campaign.” As we’ve said before, the career of Merchan’s daughter is irrelevant; she’s not the judge in this case. She works for a digital campaign consulting firm that does work for progressive clients, including the two campaigns mentioned by Trump.

Limited gag order

One of Trump’s more common — and often inaccurate — claims involves a gag order that Merchan imposed on March 26 and expanded on April 1.

“Every time I speak to you, you ask me simple questions. I’m not allowed to give you the answer because I’m gagged by the judge,” Trump said in remarks outside the courtroom on May 29, as jury deliberations began.

The former president has made similar remarks before and during the trial. At the Libertarian National Convention on May 25, Trump wrongly accused the “Biden regime” of “imposing a strict gag order in order to keep me from talking about their crimes and their unconstitutional acts.”

The gag order issued by Merchan — not “the Biden regime” — did not prevent Trump from speaking “every time” he was asked a question, and it did not prevent him from criticizing the Biden administration.

Manhattan District Attorney Bragg requested a gag order in February, citing the former president’s “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers and court staff.” Merchan agreed to a limited gag order that sought to prevent Trump from making intimidating or harassing remarks about certain trial participants.

Specifically, the March 26 order covered witnesses, jurors, court staffers, the prosecuting attorney and the district attorney’s staff (though not the district attorney himself), as well as family members of the district attorney’s prosecutors and staff members. “The uncontested record reflecting the Defendant’s prior extrajudicial statements establishes a sufficient risk to the administration of justice consistent with the standard set forth in Landmark, and there exists no less restrictive means to prevent such risk,” Merchan wrote, referring to a 1978 Supreme Court ruling.

The judge expanded his order on April 1 to include his family and member’s of the district attorney’s family after Trump attacked the judge’s daughter on social media.

“The average observer, must now, after hearing defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well,” Merchan wrote. “Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

The gag order, in its original and the amended form, allowed Trump to criticize Merchan and Bragg. And, of course, Trump was free to continue to make remarks about Biden and others not involved in the trial.

“The Defendant has a constitutional right to speak to the American voters freely, and to defend himself publicly,” the amended order stated. “This Decision and Order is equally narrowly tailored and in no way prevents Defendant from responding to alleged political attacks but does address Defendant’s recent speech.”

To date, Trump has been fined $10,000 for violating the gag order on 10 occasions. Among the violations were comments about witnesses and the jury, including a social media post that quoted a Fox News host as saying “undercover Liberal Activists” were “lying to the Judge” to get on the jury.

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Smith could have testified

In his May 29 remarks, Trump falsely said that his attorneys planned to have Bradley Smith, a former Federal Election Commission chairman, testify for the defense, but were denied by Merchan.

“This judge didn’t even let us use the No. 1 election attorney,” Trump said. “We had the leading election expert in the country, Brad Smith, ready to testify. Wouldn’t let him do it.”

But it’s not true that Merchan would not let Smith take the stand. Trump’s team decided not to use Smith as a witness after Merchan narrowed what he could talk about.

In a pretrial decision, Merchan ruled that Smith could “not testify as a lay (fact) witness; offer opinion testimony regarding the interpretation and application of federal campaign finance laws and how they relate to the facts in the instant matter, nor may Smith testify or offer an opinion as to whether the alleged conduct in this case does or does not constitute a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act.”

Instead, Merchan said that Smith would be permitted to provide “general background” about the FEC, including what it does and what laws it may enforce, and he would be able to define certain terms, such as campaign contribution, “that relate directly to this case.”

However, in court on May 20, Merchan also said that “it will be impossible” for Smith to address three specific terms that the defense wanted Smith to talk about “without invoking, discussing and interpreting the application of federal law.” The judge also pointed out that if Smith were called to testify, the prosecution would be allowed to call its own witness to testify on the same subject matter, resulting in a “battle of the experts” that may confuse the jury.

Ultimately, Smith was not asked to testify in court. In a social media post on May 20, Smith complained that Merchan had “so restricted” his testimony, but acknowledged that the “defense has decided not to call” him.

‘Advice of counsel’ defense

On the evening after closing arguments, Trump complained on Truth Social that Merchan would not allow him to employ an “advice of counsel” defense during the trial. Actually, Trump’s defense attorneys made a strategic decision before the trial to not seek such a defense. Merchan held them to that.

“An advice of counsel defense says that the defendant lacked the specific intent necessary to commit the charged crime (in this case, intent to defraud) because he was advised by his attorney that his behavior was lawful,” Randall D. Eliason, who teaches white collar criminal law at George Washington University Law School, explained to us via email. “If that’s true, that negates the required criminal intent.”

“THE GREATEST CASE I’VE EVER SEEN FOR RELIANCE ON COUNSEL, AND JUDGE MERCHAN WILL NOT, FOR WHATEVER REASON, LET ME USE THAT AS A DEFENSE IN THIS RIGGED TRIAL,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on May 28. “ANOTHER TERM, ADVICE OF COUNSEL DEFENSE!”

“To present such a defense, the defense usually has to announce it in advance and, most important, has to agree to waive attorney-client privilege so the attorney can testify about the legal advice given,” said Eliason, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, where he served as chief of the public corruption/government fraud section. “That waiver would apply to all attorney-client communications, so the defense often is reluctant to do that.

“That’s what happened in this case – Trump was not willing to waive attorney-client privilege as required, so the judge told him he could not present the defense,” Eliason said. “So he was not flatly prohibited from offering an advice of counsel defense, he was prevented from doing so when he would not take the legal steps necessary (including waiver) to properly raise the defense. That’s standard.”

In a March 12 court filing, Trump’s attorneys said they would not be employing a “formal advice-of-counsel defense.”

However, Trump’s lawyers did attempt to put forth a related argument, that Trump “lacked the requisite intent to commit the conduct charged in the Indictment because of his awareness that various lawyers were involved in the underlying conduct giving rise to the charges.” They noted that this argument was not “a formal advice-of-counsel defense,” which, his lawyers said, “would require him to prove at trial that he (1) made a complete disclosure to counsel [concerning the matter at issue], (2) sought advice as to the legality of his conduct, (3) received advice that his conduct was legal, and (4) relied on that advice in good faith.”

Therefore, they argued, “there is no privilege waiver requiring production of communications protected by the attorney-client privilege.”

On March 18, however, Merchan ruled against the use of a so-called “presence” of counsel defense.

“To allow said defense in this matter would effectively permit Defendant to invoke the very defense he has declared he will not rely upon, without the concomitant obligations that come with it,” Merchan wrote. “The result would undoubtedly be to confuse and mislead the jury. This Court can not endorse such a tactic.”

Nevertheless, during the trial, one of Trump’s attorneys said, according to a CNN account, that he wanted “to be able to argue that because Michael Cohen testified that ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker told him the agreement was ‘bulletproof’ and Cohen communicated that to Trump, that they should be able to argue it goes to Trump’s state of mind and intent to defraud.”

Merchan said his previous decision had not changed and “honestly I find it disingenuous to make it at this point.”

“This is an argument that you’ve been advancing for many, many, many months,” Merchan added. “This is something you’ve been trying to get through to the jury for many, many, many months. It’s denied; it’s not going to happen. Please don’t raise it again.”

The case against Trump

Trump has argued that he should have never been put on trial because “every single legal scholar and expert said this is no case” and “shouldn’t be brought,” as he said on May 29. Even “Bragg didn’t want to bring the case.” On May 30, Trump claimed that “Bragg turned it down, then rejuvenated it when I was running for office.”

It’s not true that there were no legal minds who thought there was a case against Trump.

Norman Eisen, a CNN legal analyst who served as special counsel for ethics and government reform during the Obama administration, and John Dean, a CNN contributor and former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon, wrote an April 2023 opinion piece titled “Alvin Bragg was right to prosecute Donald Trump.”

The men noted that many had said that the hush money case appeared “too political,” “too thorny legally” and “should have been brought by federal authorities – or not at all.” And though Eisen and Dean said that there were “important critiques of the case” that “are worthy of consideration,” the men concluded that “ultimately, they are all wrong.”

“Bragg’s case is a strong one and should not be resisted merely because it involves a controversial political figure,” they wrote.

Eisen made similar points in another April 2023 op-ed co-authored with Karen Friedman Agnifilo, also a CNN legal analyst and a former Manhattan chief assistant district attorney. The headline: “We Finally Know the Case Against Trump, and It Is Strong.”

They said some legal observers feared that the case would be weak, which turned out not to be so.

“With the release of the indictment and accompanying statement of facts, we can now say that there’s nothing novel or weak about this case,” Eisen and Adnifilo wrote. “The charge of creating false financial records is constantly brought by Mr. Bragg and other New York D.A.s. In particular, the creation of phony documentation to cover up campaign finance violations has been repeatedly prosecuted in New York. That is exactly what Mr. Trump stands accused of.”

In the end, they said that Trump was “being treated as any other New Yorker would be with similar evidence against him.”

As for Bragg, Trump may be referencing comments that were made about his reluctance to bring a broader case about Trump’s alleged financial crimes — not specifically the hush money case.

As we have written, Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office, wrote in a book released in early 2023 that Cy Vance, Bragg’s DA predecessor, “agreed and authorized” the prosecution of Trump for allegedly obtaining bank loans by overvaluing his assets. But Pomerantz wrote that once Bragg took office, “the new regime decided that Donald Trump should not be prosecuted, and the investigation faltered.”

When Pomerantz resigned in protest in March 2022, he said that Bragg’s decision was “misguided and completely contrary to the public interest.”

However, Bragg later said that he had not ruled out bringing a case in the future.

“I bring hard cases when they are ready,” Bragg said, during a February 2023 press conference, in which he was asked about what Pomerantz had written in his book. “Mark Pomerantz’s case simply was not ready. So I said to my team, let’s keep working,” Bragg said.

Bragg announced the indictment for the hush money case against Trump on April 4, 2023.

The verdict is an unprecedented legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee ahead of the November election. Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and could face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the campaign trail.

Here’s what happens next:

When will Trump be sentenced?

The case now moves to the sentencing phase, a process largely controlled by Judge Juan Merchan.

Before adjourning Thursday afternoon Merchan set Trump’s sentencing for 10 a.m. ET on July 11 — just days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. He ordered parties in the case to file motions by June 13.

Trump’s attorneys may try to push his sentencing date later — possibly even until after the Nov. 5 presidential election. But Merchan is unlikely to grant such a delay without a good reason, New York City defense lawyer Michael Bachner said.

The parties are expected to submit sentencing memos — in which each side presents arguments in favor of its preferred punishment — and other court filings, CNBC reported. Trump will also likely sit for an interview with a probation officer for a pre-sentence report, which would include sentencing recommendations.

Is he facing prison time?

The falsifying business records charges — which are Class E felonies, the least serious type of felonies under New York law — carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge would impose that punishment even if asked.

Trump’s potential sentence could also include a combination of fines and restitution, probation or other conditions.

Judge Merchan has broad discretion to determine the sentence, and he may consider all kinds of factors into his final decision.

Trump faces the threat of more serious prison time in the three other cases he’s facing, but those cases have gotten bogged down by appeals and other legal fights, so it remains unclear whether any of them will go to trial before the November election.

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Avenues for appeal

Trump can challenge his conviction in a New York appellate court and possibly the state’s highest court. The appeal process would play out over many months, if not years, according to CNBC. So even if Trump’s conviction is eventually overturned, it wouldn’t be likely to happen before Election Day.

Trump’s lawyers may raise on appeal the judge’s ruling limiting the testimony of a potential defense expert witness. The defense wanted to call Bradley Smith, who served on the Federal Election Commission, to rebut the prosecution’s contention that the hush money payments amounted to campaign finance violations.

But the defense ended up not having him testify after the judge ruled he could give general background on the FEC but couldn’t interpret how federal campaign finance laws apply to the facts of Trump’s case or opine on whether Trump’s alleged actions violate those laws. There are often guardrails around expert testimony on legal matters, on the basis that it’s up to a judge — not an expert hired by one side or the other — to instruct jurors on applicable laws.

Trump will appeal to the New York Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department. If that court upholds the verdict, Trump then could appeal to the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court.

The defense may also argue that jurors were improperly allowed to hear sometimes graphic testimony from Daniels about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which he denies ever happened. The defense unsuccessfully pushed for a mistrial over the tawdry details prosecutors elicited from Daniels. Defense lawyer Todd Blanche argued Daniels’ description of a power imbalance with the older, taller Trump, was a “dog whistle for rape,” irrelevant to the charges at hand, and “the kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from.”

Donald Trump May 29

Can Trump vote in November if he's convicted of a felony in New York?

Decision 2024 May 28

The first Biden-Trump debate of 2024 features new fights between old rivals

Can Trump still run for president?

Trump’s legal battles will not prevent him from running for president.

The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly prohibit a presidential candidate from running for office while under indictment or even while serving time behind bars. Eligibility requirements for presidents state only that they must be at least 35 years old, be a natural-born citizen of the United States, and have been a resident of the country for at least 14 years.

It’s not clear what impact the criminal conviction will have on his presidential campaign against President Joe Biden. The candidates are scheduled to face off in two presidential debates: one hosted by CNN in Atlanta on June 27, and another by ABC News on Sept. 10.

Trump has no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to hold fundraisers next week.

Longtime venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya are scheduled to host a fundraiser for the former president on June 6 in San Francisco, according to an invite reviewed by CNBC.

Trump is also likely to have a fundraiser hosted in the Hamptons after the mid-July GOP nominating convention, a person familiar with the planning told CNBC.

And from now on, Trump will no longer be bound by the gag order issued by the court in the hush money trial that barred him from discussing witnesses, jurors and the judge’s family members. He will be free to speak to the press, travel and continue his presidential campaign.

Can Trump vote?

Trump can still vote as long as he stays out of prison in New York state. While the former president is a Florida resident, a state notorious for restricting the voting rights of people with felony convictions, Florida defers to other states’ disenfranchisement rules for residents convicted of out-of-state felonies.

In Trump’s case, New York law only removes the right to vote for people convicted of felonies when they’re incarcerated. Once they’re out of prison, their rights are automatically restored, even if they’re on parole, per a 2021 law passed by the state’s Democratic legislature.

So as long as Trump isn’t sent to prison, he can vote for himself in Florida in November’s election.

The 12-person jury in New York reached its verdict after nearly two days of deliberation, marking the first time a former or sitting U.S. president has been convicted of criminal charges. 

According to the indictment, Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment meant to suppress information about a 2006 sexual encounter with porn actress Stormy Daniels that could have negatively impacted his run for the presidency.

Here’s a breakdown of each of the 34 felony counts Trump has been convicted of:

The charges carry a maximum of four years in prison, though they could also carry shorter sentences, fines or probation. The verdict does not disqualify him from continuing to run for the presidency.

Trump’s sentencing has been set for July 11. He could face a fine, probation or up to four years in prison.

Donald Trump May 30

Donald Trump guilty on all counts in hush money case

news May 30

Biden, Democrats react to Trump's guilty verdict: ‘No one is above the law'

Two experts told NBC News that it’s unlikely Trump will be imprisoned based on his age, lack of a criminal record and other factors — and an analysis of thousands of cases found that very few people charged with the same crime receive jail time. But a third expert told NBC News he believes it is “substantially” likely Trump could end up behind bars.

Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records, a class E felony that is punishable by a fine, probation or up to four years in prison per count. During the trial, Judge Juan Merchan threatened to put Trump behind bars for violating his gag order, but it’s unclear if the former president will face similar consequences now. It’s expected that any sentence on the charges would be imposed concurrently, instead of consecutively.

Former federal prosecutor Chuck Rosenberg, an NBC News analyst, said it’s unlikely that Merchan would sentence Trump, 77, to any jail time, given his age and his status as a first-time, nonviolent offender. “I’d be very surprised if there’s any sentence of incarceration at all,” Rosenberg said. “Of course, he did spend a good bit of time insulting the judge who has the authority to incarcerate him.”

The next step for Trump at this point is his sentencing, which is set for July 11.

Arthur Aidala, a former prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office who’s now a defense lawyer, said the judge will likely use some of the time before sentencing to research similar cases to determine what the median sentence is.

“He wants to know before he sentences someone what the typical sentence is,” Aidala said, and would consider other factors like Trump’s age and lack of criminal record, while also taking into account the lack of injury caused by the crime. Aidala said he believes whatever punishment the judge comes up with would be “a non-jail disposition.”

An analysis conducted by Norm Eisen, who worked for House Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment, found that roughly one in 10 people who have been convicted of falsifying business records are imprisoned, and those cases typically involved other crimes.

Donald Trump May 30

Donald Trump guilty on all counts in hush money case

news May 30

Biden, Democrats react to Trump's guilty verdict: ‘No one is above the law'

Ron Kuby, a veteran New York criminal defense lawyer, took a different view.

“Judge Merchan is known for being a harsh sentencer when it comes to white-collar crimes committed by people who have wealth and privilege and power,” Kuby said.

Kuby added that he believes “it is substantially likely Judge Merchan will sentence Trump to jail or prison time,” despite the logistical and practical complications that locking up a person with Secret Service protection would entail.

The lawyer said that’s because the criminal scheme went on for over a year, and included a number of bad acts on Trump’s part.

“It’s an entire course of conduct he was involved with — not just one bad decision,” Kuby said.

Trump, however, likely doesn’t have to worry about missing the Republican National Convention, where he’s expected to accept the party’s nomination, even though it’s taking place just days after his sentencing. Kuby said he’d likely be able to remain free while he appeals the conviction.

Trump’s behavior during the trial, including his flouting Merchan’s gag order by making comments about witnesses and the jury, will likely not be a factor in the sentencing decision, Kuby said. It’s also highly unlikely that comments that appeared to be aimed at sidestepping the gag order by Republican officials who attended the trial as Trump’s guests will figure into the judge’s reasoning, Kuby added.

“If the judge is smart he’d stay away from that,” Kuby said. “The best way for judges not to get reversed in a sentencing is to stick to the facts and circumstances of the crimes and conviction.”

Rosenberg said that despite Trump’s frequent criticisms of the judge, which he likened to “a batter who’s been yelling at the umpire from before the first pitch,” Merchan appeared to run “a clean and fair trial.”

Both Rosenberg and Kuby agreed that Trump would appeal the verdict. Kuby said that could potentially delay Trump from serving whatever punishment the judge doles out for years, even if the appeal is ultimately unsuccessful.

His first appeal will be to the state Appellate Division, a midlevel appeals court, and they will almost certainly not decide the appeal until after the November election, Kuby said. If he loses there, he could then appeal to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. A loss there would be followed by a request to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

If all that fails, Kuby said, he could then try turning to federal court in another attempt to eventually get the case before the Supreme Court.

The appeals process typically takes a long time — Kuby said he had one client who staved off prison time for six years — but there’s another potential complicating factor in this case.

“If he becomes president of the United States he cannot be incarcerated in a state prison” while he’s in office, Kuby said, because it could prevent him from fulfilling his constitutional duties. If he lost his appeals, “by the time he leaves office — if he leaves office — he’d be ready to be incarcerated,” he said.

This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here:

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That’s because Florida defers to other states’ disenfranchisement rules for residents convicted of out-of-state felonies. In Trump’s case, New York law only removes the right to vote for people convicted of felonies when they’re incarcerated. Once they’re out of prison, their rights are automatically restored, even if they’re on parole, per a 2021 law passed by the state’s Democratic legislature.

“If a Floridian’s voting rights are restored in the state of conviction, they are restored under Florida law,” Blair Bowie of the Campaign Legal Center wrote in a post, noting that people without Trump’s legal resources are often confused by Florida’s complex rules.

So as long as Trump isn’t sent to prison, he can vote for himself in Florida in November’s election.

Trump was convicted Thursday of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

A lifelong New Yorker, Trump established residency in Florida in 2019, while he was in the White House.

Even if he is elected president again, Trump will not be able to pardon himself of state charges in New York. The president’s pardon power applies only to federal crimes.

The conviction, and even imprisonment, would not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House. The Republican National Convention, which will open four days after his July 11 sentencing date in New York, adopted rules last year that didn’t include any specific provisions if its presumptive nominee is convicted of a crime.

Delegates could move to change their rules before formalizing Trump’s nomination, but there’s no evidence that a significant faction of the party would try to replace the former president on the GOP ticket. Trump commands loyalty across the GOP base, and the Republican National Committee is run by his loyalists, including his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair.

Now that his criminal trial in New York has wrapped up with a guilty verdict, former President Donald Trump is plowing ahead with a packed schedule of fundraising events that will likely raise millions of dollars for his presidential campaign.

Trump is no longer required to sit in court every day, as he has been for much of the past two months. This frees his days for upcoming travel to fundraisers in both Republican strongholds like Texas, and deep blue states like California.

Longtime venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya are scheduled to host a fundraiser for the former president on June 6 in San Francisco, according to an invite reviewed by CNBC. Tickets for the event start at $50,000 per person and go up to $300,000. Couples can get in for $500,000.

Trump is also likely to be hosted in the ritzy Long Island enclave of the Hamptons after the Republican party’s mid-July nominating convention, according to a person familiar with the planning.

The Hamptons soiree will feature at least six co-hosts, but the campaign has yet to determine the exact date or who will host, this person said.

Trump’s sentencing in the case has been scheduled for July 11, in New York City.

Trump has also said privately that he wants to hold a fundraiser and a rally at Madison Square Garden this summer, ideally in July, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump’s team and its allies have been discussing the extensive security that would be needed to ensure his safety in a public venue that seats around 19,000 people, one of the people explained.

Some people in this story were granted anonymity in order to discuss fluid scheduling decisions and logistics.

The potential July event at Madison Square Garden could bump up against the Republican National Convention set to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin July 15-19.

If Trump were to sell out tickets to Madison Square Garden, the event could easily raise millions of dollars for his cash-strapped campaign. Trump has been using donor funds to pay the massive legal bills to multiple firms defending him in four criminal cases.

An MSG spokesperson said in a one line statement to CNBC that they “do not have any events scheduled with the Trump organization at this time.”

A source familiar with the deliberations said Trump’s team and MSG officials have been in touch about a future event at the arena, but declined to provide further details.

An MSG event for Trump would also represent a counterpunch to President Joe Biden’s marquee fundraiser in March at Radio City Music Hall that featured two former presidents of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The gathering raised more than $25 million and sold-out the over 5,000 seat venue.  Tickets for the Biden event started at $250 and went up to $500,000, according to NBC News.

The Republican National Convention will have a newcomer this year who was a major donor to the Democratic Party: Jacob Helberg, a senior advisor to Palantir CEO Alex Karp.

Helberg told CNBC he plans to host a two hour summit on July 17 in Milwaukee during the convention that focuses on technology and the defense industry.

Helberg said the confirmed guests to the summit include Palmer Luckey, the founder of defense technology company Anduril Industries, as well as Sens. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn. and Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ohio.

Banks, a veteran Trump ally, told CNBC that Helberg is bridging the gap between Silicon Valley, Washington D.C. and the defense industry. “I hope he’ll play a big role in President Trump’s second term and I look forward to seeing him in Milwaukee,” Banks said.

Press representatives for Anduril, Tuberville and Hagerty did not return requests for comment. A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee did not return a request for comment.

Helberg recently told The Washington Post that he gave $1 million in support of Trump after years of backing Democrats. He donated at least $700,000, for instance, to the Biden Victory Fund in 2020, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Asked whether what happens in Trump’s trial sways his support for the former president, Helberg said, “My biggest concerns are what are the make or break issues for America.”

He pointed to concerns he has with undocumented immigrants entering the United States, the need to be competitive with China and the war between Israel and Hamas.

Jurors convicted Trump on all 34 counts after deliberating for 9.5 hours.

So what happens next?

Judge Juan Merchan is responsible for imposing the sentence. He set the date for July 11 at 10 a.m. He’ll be free on bail pending that. The prosecution and defense both will make recommendations on what the sentencing will be.

Those motions are due June 13.

The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and ultimately president. As he seeks a return to the White House in this year’s election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness to accept Trump’s boundary-breaking behavior.

Donald Trump is now the first former American president ever to be convicted in a criminal trial — but it’s far from clear whether that black mark will sink, or even weigh down, his bid to unseat President Joe Biden.

Recent polls suggest that the guilty verdict could affect how key voting blocs view Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

But any change may not be enough to change the trajectory of the presidential race, according to the latest poll finding that only a small fraction of non-Democratic voters would be less likely to vote for Trump if he is found guilty in the hush money trial.

Nearly three-fourths of registered independents said that a guilty verdict against Trump would make no difference to their vote, according to the survey from NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist released Thursday morning.

Just 11% of those respondents said that outcome would make them less likely to back Trump in November, while 15% of the group said a guilty verdict would more them more likely to support him.

Among Republicans, 25% said they will be more inclined to vote for Trump if he is found guilty in New York, versus 10% who say they will be less likely to do so.

Those answers echo the results of a recent Quinnipiac University poll, in which just 6% of Trump voters said they would be less likely to vote for him if convicted, while nearly a quarter said they would be more likely to vote for him.

However, 23% of independent registered voters in that poll said a Trump conviction would make them less likely to back him.

“It’s a strange situation where a criminal conviction probably makes little difference” politically, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, in an interview.

Most people on either side of the political spectrum have already made up their minds about Trump, the professor explained.

“The only thing that could hurt trump at this point would be if somebody has a TikTok of him kicking a cat,” he quipped.

Compared with a Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll in March — which found 36% of independents would be less likely to vote for a convicted Trump — the more recent survey results suggest a decline in the potential impact of the hush money verdict.

On the one hand, the poll findings indicate that the outcome of Trump’s trial ultimately will not sway the vast majority of voters.

But in a consistently tight race with two well-known candidates targeting a small-but-important slice of swing voters, any shift in opinion resulting from the guilty verdict could have an outsize effect.

Still, few events in the unusual presidential rematch have so far made a clear, measurable impact on the state of the contest.

Despite being weighed down by numerous lawsuits, dozens of criminal charges, and a regular stream of scandals and gaffes, national polling trackers show Trump is in an extremely close national race with Biden and leading slightly in key battleground states.

Biden’s White House and reelection campaign, meanwhile, have been dogged by consumer woes about inflation — consistently one of voters’ top concerns — despite their efforts to spread a more positive message about the growing U.S. economy.

NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist polled 1,261 U.S. adults from May 21 to May 23 with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points. For the 907 registered voters polled who definitely plan to vote in the Nov. 5 election, the margin of error rises to 4.1 percentage points.

Quinnipiac polled 1,374 registered U.S. voters from May 16 to May 20, with a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.

This Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll of 1,024 U.S. adults was conducted March 8 to March 10. It has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

The 12-person jury in New York reached its verdict after 9.5 hours of deliberations. Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the campaign trail after being found guilty. There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to hold fundraisers next week.

Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the case, set sentencing for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Trump had pleaded not guilty to the 34 counts, marking the first time a former president has had to plead to criminal charges. The felony charges alleged Trump had falsified Trump Organization business records in order to cover up payments meant to suppress information about a 2006 sexual encounter with Daniels that could have negatively impacted his run for the presidency.

Over 16 days of testimony, 22 witnesses took the stand in the Manhattan courtroom including Daniels herself, former Trump staffer Hope Hicks and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen took the stand and provided key details as to the former president’s role in paying Daniels $130,000 to keep her story out of the tabloids.

Donald Trump May 30

FactCheck: Trump's repeated claims on his New York hush money trial

Donald Trump May 30

How Michael Cohen, Mike Johnson and others reacted to the Trump guilty verdict

Donald Trump May 30

Trump has been convicted. Here's what happens next

The criminal case was the first of four brought against Trump in four different jurisdictions and the only one definitively set to go to trial before the 2024 election.

“I did my job,” District Attorney Alvin Bragg told reporters after the verdict. “Our job is to follow the facts and the law without fear or favor, and that’s exactly what we did here.”

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked. The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

After the verdict, Trump said: “The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people. They know what happened here, everyone knows what happened here… I’m a very innocent man.”

Both campaigns quickly sent out reactions to the verdict, with Trump’s sending out a fundraising pitch and Biden’s declaring “no one is above the law.”

Now that the historic first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president has ended, here’s a look at some of the key players.

DEFENDANT: Donald J. Trump

The former president of the United States and the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee parlayed his success as a reality television star and celebrity businessman to win the 2016 presidential election, becoming America’s 45th president.

The hush money trial involved allegations that he falsified his company’s records to hide the true nature of payments to his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who helped bury negative stories about him during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Who’s who in the Trump hush money trial

Key players in the historic first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

Source: AP

WITNESSES: Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, David Pecker, Hope Hicks

MICHAEL COHEN: Trump’s former lawyer and fixer. He was once a fierce Trump ally, but took the stand as a key prosecution witness, testifying against his former boss. Cohen worked for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017. He later went to federal prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations relating to the hush money arrangements and unrelated crimes.

STORMY DANIELS: The porn actor who received a $130,000 payment from Cohen as part of his hush-money efforts. Daniels testified that Cohen paid her to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she had with a married Trump in 2006 after the two met at a golf charity event. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.

DAVID PECKER: The National Enquirer’s former publisher and a longtime Trump friend, Pecker laid out in detail the various “catch-and-kill” schemes he engaged in to help keep harmful headlines about his friend Trump out of the tabloids. Prosecutors said he met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s campaign identify potential negative stories about him.

HOPE HICKS: Trump’s former White House communications director, who testified she spoke with Trump by phone during a frenzied effort to keep allegations of his marital infidelity out of the press after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape leaked weeks before the 2016 election. In the tape, from 2005, Trump boasted about grabbing women without permission.

PROSECUTORS: Alvin Bragg, Matthew Colangelo, Joshua Steinglass, Susan Hoffinger

DISTRICT ATTORNEY ALVIN BRAGG: A former civil rights lawyer and law professor, Bragg is a Democrat in his first term as Manhattan’s district attorney. He inherited the Trump investigation when he took office in 2021. He oversaw the prosecution of Trump’s company in an unrelated tax fraud case before moving to indict Trump last year.

MATTHEW COLANGELO: A former high-ranking Justice Department official who was hired by Bragg in 2022 to lead the Trump investigation. They previously worked together on Trump-related matters at the New York attorney general’s office.

JOSHUA STEINGLASS: A Manhattan prosecutor for more than 25 years, he has worked on some of the office’s more high-profile cases, including the Trump Organization’s tax fraud conviction in 2022 and cases involving violent crimes.

SUSAN HOFFINGER: The chief of the district attorney’s Investigation Division, she returned to the office in 2022 after more than 20 years in private practice. She worked with Steinglass on the Trump Organization tax fraud prosecution.

TRUMP’S ATTORNEYS: Todd Blanche, Susan Necheles, Emil Bove

TODD BLANCHE: A former federal prosecutor, Blanche previously represented Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in a mortgage fraud case — and got it thrown out. Blanche successfully argued that the case, brought by the same prosecutor’s office now taking on Trump, was too similar to one that landed Manafort in federal prison and therefore amounted to double jeopardy.

SUSAN NECHELES: A former Brooklyn prosecutor, Necheles is a respected New York City defense lawyer who represented Trump’s company at its tax fraud trial last year. In the past she served as counsel to the late Genovese crime family underboss Venero Mangano, known as Benny Eggs, and defended John Gotti’s lawyer, Bruce Cutler, in the early ’90s.

EMIL BOVE: A star college lacrosse player, Bove was a veteran federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. He was involved in multiple high-profile prosecutions, including a drug-trafficking case against the former Honduran president’s brother, a man who set off a pressure cooker device in Manhattan, and a man who sent dozens of mail bombs to prominent targets across the country.

Judge Juan M. Merchan

The judge presiding over the case. He was also the judge in the Trump Organization’s tax fraud trial in 2022 and is overseeing a border wall fraud case against longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon. Merchan twice denied requests by Trump’s lawyers that he step aside from the case. They contended he was biased because his daughter runs a political consulting firm that has worked for Democrats, including President Joe Biden. Merchan said he was certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”

Missing from the historic but sometimes tawdry court proceedings arising from an alleged hush-money deal with a porn actress? Trump’s wife, Melania.

She has not been spotted in the Manhattan criminal court in lower Manhattan. Neither has former first daughter, Ivanka, nor Trump’s youngest son, Barron.

Meanwhile, the Biden campaign has taken advantage of the landmark trial by holding a press conference outside the courthouse. Famous fellow New Yorker and persistent Trump critic, Robert De Niro, called a nearby Trump crowd “gangsters.” Also attending, two officers who defended the U.S. Capitol from the Jan. 6 mob.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying business records.

Take a look at who’s shown up this week — and who hasn’t.

Donald Trump May 9

Trump's hush money trial hinges on business transactions, not on Stormy Daniels' shocking testimony

Donald Trump Apr 21

Key players: Who's who at Donald Trump's hush money criminal trial

The Trump family delegation

Donald Trump Jr.

Eric Trump

Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife and now co-chair of the Republican National Committee

Tiffany Trump

Michael Boulos, Tiffany Trump’s husband

Notable absences from the courtroom

Melania Trump

Ivanka Trump

Barron Trump

Other friends, advisors and Trump political allies seen

• Steve Witkoff, real estate executive and friend of Trump’s who testified for the defense in Trump’s fraud trial last year
• Steven Cheung, Trump advisor
• Boris Epshteyn, Trump advisor
• Jason Miller, Trump advisor
• Natalie Harp, press secretary for the Trump campaign
• Alina Habba, lawyer who has represented Trump in other cases
• Former Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, now a Fox News host
• Will Scharf, Republican candidate for Missouri attorney general

Prominent Trump critics observed outside the courthouse

• Robert De Niro, actor and Trump critic
• Former Capitol police officer Harry Dunn who was defeated in a bid for a House seat from Maryland
• Former Washington, D.C., police officer Michael Fanone

Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read as cheering from the street below — where supporters and detractors of the former president were gathered — could be heard in the hallway on the courthouse’s 15th floor where the decision was revealed after more than nine hours of deliberations.

“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” Trump told reporters after leaving the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people. They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here.”

Judge Juan Merchan set sentencing for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where GOP leaders, who remained resolute in their support in the immediate aftermath of the verdict, are expected to formally make him their nominee.

The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and ultimately president. As he seeks to reclaim the White House in this year’s election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness to accept Trump’s boundary-breaking behavior.

Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he returns to the campaign trail with felony convictions. There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to hold fundraisers next week.

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked. The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the significance of the outcome. Though the legal and historical implications of the verdict are readily apparent, the political consequences are less so given its potential to reinforce rather than reshape already-hardened opinions about Trump.

Ahead of the verdict, Trump’s campaign had argued that, no matter what the jury decided, the outcome was unlikely to sway voters — and that the election would instead be decided by issues such as inflation.

For another candidate in another time, a criminal conviction might doom a presidential run, but Trump’s political career has endured through two impeachments, allegations of sexual abuse, investigations into everything from potential ties to Russia to plotting to overturn an election, and personally salacious storylines including the emergence of a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals.

In addition, the general allegations of the case have been known to voters for years and, while tawdry, are widely seen as less grievous than the allegations he faces in three other cases that charge him with subverting American democracy and mishandling national security secrets.

Even so, the verdict is likely to give President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats space to sharpen arguments that Trump is unfit for office, though for now the White House offered only a muted statement saying that it respected the rule of law. On the other hand, the decision will also provide fodder for the presumptive Republican nominee to advance his unsupported claims that he is victimized by a criminal justice system he insists is politically motivated against him.

Trump maintained throughout the trial that he had done nothing wrong and that the case should never have been brought, railing against the proceedings from inside the courthouse — where he was joined by a parade of high-profile Republican allies — and racking up fines for violating a gag order with inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses.

Republicans showed no sign of loosening their embrace of the party leader, with House Speaker Mike Johnson releasing a statement lamenting what he called “a shameful day in American history.” He called the case “a purely political exercise, not a legal one.”

The first criminal trial of a former American president always presented a unique test of the court system, not only because of Trump’s prominence but also because of his relentless verbal attacks on the foundation of the case and its participants. But the verdict from the 12-person jury marked a repudiation of Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in the proceedings or to potentially impress the panel with a show of GOP support.

The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who said she had sex with the married Trump in 2006.

The $130,000 payment was made by Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen to buy Daniels’ silence during the final weeks of the 2016 race in what prosecutors allege was an effort to interfere in the election. When Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses, which prosecutors said was an unlawful attempt to mask the true purpose of the transaction. Trump’s lawyers contend they were legitimate payments for legal services.

news May 30

Trump slams trial as ‘rigged, disgraceful' after he is found guilty on all counts

news May 30

Trump has been convicted. Here's what happens next

news May 30

Trump guilty on all 34 counts in hush money trial, historic first for a former U.S. president

Trump has denied the sexual encounter, and his lawyers argued during the trial that his celebrity status, particularly during the 2016 campaign, made him a target for extortion. They’ve said hush money deals to bury negative stories about Trump were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his family and brand as a businessman, not political ones. They also sought to undermine the credibility of Cohen, the star prosecution witness who pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to the payments, as driven by personal animus toward Trump as well as fame and money.

The trial featured more than four weeks of occasionally riveting testimony that revisited an already well-documented chapter from Trump’s past, when his 2016 campaign was threatened by the disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording that captured him talking about grabbing women sexually without their permission and the prospect of other stories about Trump and sex surfacing that would be harmful to his candidacy.

Trump himself did not testify, but jurors heard his voice through a secret recording of a conversation with Cohen in which he and the lawyer discussed a $150,000 hush money deal involving a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump was heard saying on the recording made by Cohen.

Daniels herself testified, offering at times a graphic recounting of the sexual encounter she says they had in a hotel suite during a Lake Tahoe golf tournament. The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified about how he worked to keep stories harmful to the Trump campaign from becoming public at all, including by having his company buy McDougal’s story.

Jurors also heard from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal.

He detailed the tense negotiations to get both women compensated for their silence but also faced an aggressive round of questioning from a Trump attorney who noted that Davidson had helped broker similar hush money deals in cases involving other prominent figures.

But the most pivotal witness, by far, was Cohen, who spent days on the stand and gave jurors an insider’s view of the hush money scheme and what he said was Trump’s detailed knowledge of it.

“Just take care of it,” he quoted Trump as saying at one point.

He offered jurors the most direct link between Trump and the heart of the charges, recounting a meeting in which they and the then-chief financial officer of Trump Organization described a plan to have Cohen reimbursed in monthly installments for legal services.

And he emotionally described his dramatic break with Trump in 2018, when he decided to cooperate with prosecutors after a decade-long career as the then-president’s personal fixer.

“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Cohen told the jury.

The outcome provides a degree of vindication for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who had characterized the case as being about election interference rather than hush money and defended it against criticism from legal experts who called it the weakest of the four prosecutions against Trump.

But it took on added importance not only because it proceeded to trial first but also because it could be the only one of the cases to reach a jury before the election.

The other three cases — local and federal charges in Atlanta and Washington that he conspired to undo the 2020 election, as well as a federal indictment in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding top-secret records — are bogged down by delays or appeals.

Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes Thursday as a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

Jurors convicted Trump on all 34 counts after deliberating for 9.5 hours.

The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and ultimately president. As he seeks a return to the White House in this year’s election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness to accept Trump’s boundary-breaking behavior.

Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the campaign trail as a convicted felon. There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to hold fundraisers next week. It will likely take several months for Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the case, to decide whether to sentence Trump to prison.

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked. The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the significance of the outcome. Though the legal and historical implications of the verdict are readily apparent, the political consequences are less so given its potential to reinforce rather than reshape already-hardened opinions about Trump.

For another candidate in another time, a criminal conviction might doom a presidential run, but Trump’s political career has endured through two impeachments, allegations of sexual abuse, investigations into everything from potential ties to Russia to plotting to overturn an election, and personally salacious storylines including the emergence of a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals.

Donald Trump May 29

Can Trump vote in November if he's convicted of a felony in New York?

Donald Trump May 30

Team Trump without Melania or Ivanka? Who's been spotted at Manhattan criminal court this week — and who hasn't

In addition, the general allegations of the case have been known to voters for years and, while tawdry, are widely seen as less grievous than the allegations he faces in three other cases that charge him with subverting American democracy and mishandling national security secrets.

Even so, the verdict is likely to give President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats space to sharpen arguments that Trump is unfit for office, even as it provides fodder for the presumptive Republican nominee to advance his unsupported claims that he is victimized by a criminal justice system he insists is politically motivated against him.

Trump maintained throughout the trial that he had done nothing wrong and that the case should never have been brought, railing against the proceedings from inside the courthouse — where he was joined by a parade of high-profile Republican allies — and racking up fines for violating a gag order with inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses.

The first criminal trial of a former American president always presented a unique test of the court system, not only because of Trump’s prominence but also because of his relentless verbal attacks on the foundation of the case and its participants. But the verdict from the 12-person jury marked a repudiation of Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in the proceedings or to potentially impress the panel with a show of GOP support.

The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who said she had sex with the married Trump in 2006.

The $130,000 payment was made by Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen to buy Daniels’ silence during the final weeks of the 2016 race in what prosecutors allege was an effort to interfere in the election. When Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses, which prosecutors said was an unlawful attempt to mask the true purpose of the transaction. Trump’s lawyers contend they were legitimate payments for legal services.

Trump has denied the sexual encounter, and his lawyers argued during the trial that his celebrity status, particularly during the 2016 campaign, made him a target for extortion. They’ve said hush money deals to bury negative stories about Trump were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his family and brand as a businessman, not political ones. They also sought to undermine the credibility of Cohen, the star prosecution witness who pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to the payments, as driven by personal animus toward Trump as well as fame and money.

The trial featured more than four weeks of occasionally riveting testimony that revisited an already well-documented chapter from Trump’s past, when his 2016 campaign was threatened by the disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording that captured him talking about grabbing women sexually without their permission and the prospect of other stories about Trump and sex surfacing that would be harmful to his candidacy.

Trump himself did not testify, but jurors heard his voice through a secret recording of a conversation with Cohen in which he and the lawyer discussed a $150,000 hush money deal involving a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump was heard saying on the recording made by Cohen.

Daniels herself testified, offering at times a graphic recounting of the sexual encounter she says they had in a hotel suite during a Lake Tahoe golf tournament. The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified about how he worked to keep stories harmful to the Trump campaign from becoming public at all, including by having his company buy McDougal’s story.

Jurors also heard from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal.

He detailed the tense negotiations to get both women compensated for their silence but also faced an aggressive round of questioning from a Trump attorney who noted that Davidson had helped broker similar hush money deals in cases involving other prominent figures.

But the most pivotal witness, by far, was Cohen, who spent days on the stand and gave jurors an insider’s view of the hush money scheme and what he said was Trump’s detailed knowledge of it.

Who’s who in the Trump hush money trial

Key players in the historic first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

Source: AP

“Just take care of it,” he quoted Trump as saying at one point.

He offered jurors the most direct link between Trump and the heart of the charges, recounting a meeting in which they and the then-chief financial officer of Trump Organization described a plan to have Cohen reimbursed in monthly installments for legal services.

And he emotionally described his dramatic break with Trump in 2018, when he decided to cooperate with prosecutors after a decade-long career as the then-president’s personal fixer.

“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Cohen told the jury.

The outcome provides a degree of vindication for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who had characterized the case as being about election interference rather than hush money and defended it against criticism from legal experts who called it the weakest of the four prosecutions against Trump.

But it took on added importance not only because it proceeded to trial first but also because it could be the only one of the cases to reach a jury before the election.

The other three cases — local and federal charges in Atlanta and Washington that he conspired to undo the 2020 election, as well as a federal indictment in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding top-secret records — are bogged down by delays or appeals.

___

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

But experts say Trump is unlikely to be disenfranchised by a felony conviction in the New York case, noting that it will come down to whether the presumptive Republican presidential nominee goes to prison as part of his sentence.

Forty-eight states prohibit some or all Americans with felony convictions on their record from voting, according to the Sentencing Project, and an estimated 4.4 million Americans — approximately 2% of the voting-age population — could not vote in the 2022 elections due to those laws. The group estimates that more than 1 million of those disenfranchised Americans live in Florida, where Trump established his official residency in 2019.

Florida defers to other state laws when it comes to disenfranchising voters who are tried and convicted elsewhere. That means that Florida voters like Trump would lose their voting rights only if the state where they are convicted would disenfranchise them for the crime, too. And if the state of their conviction would restore their voting rights, so would Florida, said Blair Bowie, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center who advocates for the end of felony disenfranchisement.

New York prohibits those serving time behind bars for felony convictions from voting, and voting rights are restored as soon as the individual leaves prison. Those convicted of felonies who do not go to prison never lose their voting rights.

Donald Trump May 29

Jurors in Trump hush money trial end 1st day of deliberations after asking to rehear testimony

Donald Trump May 21

Defense rests its case without Trump testifying in his hush money trial

In the New York case, “the only way he wouldn’t be able to vote is if he is in prison on Election Day,” Bowie said.

The 12-person jury in Trump’s Manhattan trial began deliberating prosecutors’ case on Wednesday, and could render a verdict at any point. Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to a hush money payment his attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 election. 

Trump could face up to four years in prison if he’s convicted. But experts say prison time for a first-time, nonviolent offender is less likely. And even if he were ordered to serve time, the inevitable appeals process would likely delay a sentence well past the 2024 election, allowing Trump to cast a ballot for himself in his third presidential bid.

In the event of Trump losing his voting rights in Florida, there would also be avenues for him to regain them.

Trump could seek clemency to restore his voting rights in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis — his former rival in the 2024 GOP presidential primary — oversees a process that allows people with felony convictions to regain their voting rights.

Who’s who in the Trump hush money trial

Key players in the historic first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

Source: AP

Bowie said DeSantis typically requires those with felony convictions to complete the terms of their sentencing before applying, but has the power to change the rules.

Conviction in federal court — where Trump faces charges in Washington, D.C., for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and in Florida for his handling of classified documents — could pose a greater threat to the former president’s voting rights in Florida, she added, as Trump would need to seek clemency in Florida or a presidential pardon to vote again in the state in that scenario. But it’s unclear if those cases will go to trial before Election Day.

Bob Libal, an organizer at the Sentencing Project, said the former president’s experience is not unique.

“The confusion around President Trump’s eligibility to vote is representative of a confusion that a lot of people have and I think that that confusion dissuades people from voting,” he said.

“It can be quite complicated. We’re talking about Trump, who’s a person who has access to lots of lawyers, and even here you can tell it’s quite complicated,” Bowie added. “For the average person who doesn’t have access to attorneys, it can be almost impossible.”

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The 12-person jury was sent home around 4 p.m. after about 4 1/2 hours of deliberations. The process is to resume Thursday, when jurors are expected to rehear the requested testimony and at least part of the judge’s legal instructions meant to guide them on the law.

Jurors also asked to rehear at least part of the judge’s instructions meant to guide them on the law. The notes sent to the judge with the requests were the first burst of communication with the court after the panel of seven men and five women was sent to a private room just before 11:30 a.m. to begin weighing a verdict.

“It is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. It is yours,” Judge Juan M. Merchan told jurors earlier in the day before dispatching them to begin deliberations, reminding them of their vow during the selection process to judge the case fairly and impartially.

It’s unclear how long the deliberations will last. A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to reclaim the White House while an an acquittal would represent a major win for Trump and embolden him on the campaign trail. Since verdicts must be unanimous, it’s also possible that the case ends in a mistrial if the jury can’t reach a consensus after days of deliberations.

Trump struck a pessimistic tone after leaving the courtroom following the reading of jury instructions, repeating his assertions of a “very unfair trial” and saying: “Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we’ll see. We’ll see how we do.”

He remained inside the courthouse during deliberations, where he posted on his social media network complaints about the trial and quoted legal and political commentators who view the case in his favor. In one all-capital-letters post, he proclaimed that he didn’t even “know what the charges are in this rigged case,” even though he was present in the courtroom as the judge detailed them to jurors.

He did not testify in his own defense, something the judge told jurors they could not take into account.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 Republican presidential campaign.

The charge, a felony, arises from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump is accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush money payment.

Donald Trump May 28

Trump prosecutor focuses on ‘cover-up' in closing arguments while defense attacks key witness

Donald Trump May 27

Major week looms in the Trump hush money trial. Here's what to expect

Donald Trump May 21

Defense rests its case without Trump testifying in his hush money trial

Trump has pleaded not guilty and contends the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services.

To convict Trump, jurors must find beyond a reasonable doubt that he falsified or caused business records to be entered falsely and did so with the intent to deceive and the intent to commit or conceal another crime.

Under the law, if they do not find that prosecutors have proven one or both of those elements, they must acquit Trump. Prosecutors allege Trump falsified business records to hide breaches of campaign finance law and a violation of a state election law alleging a conspiracy to promote or prevent an election.

Just hours before the start of deliberations, Trump posted another all-caps rant about the trial, the judge and Cohen on his social media network before leaving Trump Tower for the courthouse Wednesday morning.

He called it a “Kangaroo Court!” and falsely claimed that the judge barred him from defending himself by claiming that his alleged actions were taken on the advice of his then-lawyer, Cohen. Trump’s lawyers in March notified the court that they would not rely on that defense.

Who’s who in the Trump hush money trial

Key players in the historic first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

Source: AP

“There was no crime, except for the bum that got caught stealing from me!” Trump said, apparently referring to Cohen. He added, again in all capital letters, “In God We Trust!”

The jurors — a diverse cross-section of Manhattan residents and professional backgrounds — often appeared riveted by testimony in the trial, including from Cohen and Daniels. Many took notes and watched intently as witnesses answered questions from Manhattan prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers.

Jurors started deliberating after hearing final pitches from the prosecution and defense in the form of closing arguments and after getting instructed in the law by the Merchan, who offered some guidance on factors the panel can use to assess witness testimony, including its plausibility, its consistency with other testimony, the witness’ manner on the stand, and whether the person has a motive to lie.

But, the judge said, “there is no particular formula for evaluating the truthfulness and accuracy of another person’s statement.”

The principles he outlined are standard but perhaps all the more relevant after Trump’s defense leaned heavily on questioning the credibility of key prosecution witnesses, including Cohen.

Any verdict must be unanimous. During deliberations, six alternate jurors who also sat through every minute of the trial will be kept at the courthouse in a separate room in case they are needed to replace a juror who falls ill or is otherwise unavailable. If that happens, deliberations will start anew once the replacement juror is in place.

Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.

The lawyers’ dueling accounts, wildly divergent in their assessments of witness credibility, Trump’s culpability and the strength of evidence, offered both sides one final chance to score points with the jury before it starts deliberating the first felony case against a former American president.

The landmark case, the only one of four criminal prosecutions against Trump to reach trial, centered on allegations that Trump and his allies conspired to stifle potentially embarrassing stories during the 2016 presidential campaign through hush money payments — including to a porn actor who alleged that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier.

“This case, at its core, is about a conspiracy and a cover-up,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors, who are expected to begin deliberations Wednesday. He later added: “We’ll never know if this effort to hoodwink voters made the difference in the 2016 election, but that’s not something we have to prove.”

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors that neither the actor, Stormy Daniels, nor the Trump attorney who paid her, Michael Cohen, can be trusted.

“President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof, period,” Blanche said.

Following more than four weeks of testimony, the summations tee up a momentous and historically unprecedented task for the jury as it decides whether to convict the presumptive Republican presidential nominee ahead of the November election. The political undertones of the proceedings were unmistakable as President Joe Biden’s campaign staged an event outside the courthouse with actor Robert De Niro while Blanche reminded jurors the case was not a referendum on their views about Trump.

In a marathon five-hour argument that stretched deep into the evening, Steinglass stressed to jurors the trove of evidence they had viewed but also sought to defray potential concerns about witness credibility. Trump and his legal team, for instance, have repeatedly denounced Cohen as a liar.

The prosecutor acknowledged that Daniels’ account about the alleged 2006 encounter in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite, which Trump has denied, was at times “cringeworthy.” But he said the details she offered — including about decor and what she said she saw when she snooped in Trump’s toiletry kit — were full of touchstones “that kind of ring true.”

He said the story matters because it “reinforces (Trump’s) incentive to buy her silence.”

“Her story is messy. It makes people uncomfortable to hear. It probably makes some of you uncomfortable to hear. But that’s kind of the point,” Steinglass said. He added: “In the simplest terms, Stormy Daniels is the motive.”

The payoff unfolded against the backdrop of the disclosure of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump could be heard bragging about grabbing women sexually without their permission. Had the Daniels story emerged after that recording, it would have undermined his strategy of spinning away his words, Steinglass said.

“It’s critical to appreciate this,” Steinglass said. At the same time he was dismissing his words on the tape as “locker room talk,” Trump “was negotiating to muzzle a porn star,” the prosecutor said.

Donald Trump May 27

E. Jean Carroll's lawyer responds to Trump Memorial Day post: ‘All options are on the table'

Donald Trump May 27

Major week looms in the Trump hush money trial. Here's what to expect

Blanche, who spoke first, sought to downplay the fallout by saying the “Access Hollywood” tape was not a “doomsday event.”

Steinglass also maintained that the prosecution’s case did not rest solely on Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer who paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal charges for his role in the hush money payments, as well as to lying to Congress. He went to prison and was disbarred, but his direct involvement in the transactions made him a key trial witness.

“It’s not about whether you like Michael Cohen. It’s not about whether you want to go into business with Michael Cohen,” Steinglass said. “It’s whether he has useful, reliable information to give you about what went down in this case, and the truth is that he was in the best position to know.”

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, charges punishable by up to four years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

The two sides also differed on a recording Cohen made of himself and Trump discussing what prosecutors say was a plan to buy the rights to the story of a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, from the National Enquirer, after the publication’s parent company paid her $150,000 to keep quiet about an affair she says she had with Trump.

Blanche said the September 2016 recording, which cuts off before the conversation finishes, is unreliable and isn’t about McDougal at all, but rather about a plan to buy a collection of material the tabloid had hoarded on Trump. Steinglass said the recording was part of a “mountain of evidence” against Trump.

Though the case featured sometimes seamy discussion of sex and tabloid industry practices, the actual charges concern something decidedly less flashy: reimbursements Trump signed for Cohen for the payments.

The reimbursements were recorded as being for legal expenses, which prosecutors say was a fraudulent label designed to conceal the purpose of the hush money transaction.

Defense lawyers say Cohen actually did substantive legal work for Trump and his family. But Steinglass said that argument is undermined by a 2018 Trump tweet in which the then-president described the arrangement with Cohen as a “reimbursement” while insisting it was unrelated to his candidacy.

“Mr. Cohen spent more time being cross-examined at this trial than he did doing legal work for Donald Trump in 2017,” Steinglass quipped. “Do you think there’s any chance Donald Trump would pay $42,000 an hour for legal work by Michael Cohen?”

In his own address to the jury, Blanche castigated the case’s entire foundation.

He said Cohen, not Trump, created the invoices submitted to the Trump Organization for reimbursement and he rejected the prosecution’s caricature of a details-oriented manager, suggesting instead that Trump was preoccupied by the presidency and not the checks he was signing. And he mocked the idea that the alleged hush money scheme amounted to election interference.

“Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people who are working together to help somebody win,” Blanche said.

He reserved his most animated attack for Cohen, with whom he tangled during a lengthy cross-examination.

Mimicking the term “GOAT,” used primarily in sports as an acronym for “greatest of all time,” Blanche labeled Cohen the “GLOAT” — greatest liar of all time — and called him “the human embodiment of reasonable doubt.”

“He lied to you repeatedly. He lied many, many times before you even met him. His financial and personal well-being depend on this case. He is biased and motivated to tell you a story that is not true,” Blanche said, a reference to Cohen’s social media attacks on Trump and the lucrative income he has derived from books and podcasts about Trump.

The attorney’s voice became even more impassioned as he revisited one of the more memorable moments of the trial: when Blanche sought to unravel Cohen’s claim that he had spoken to Trump by phone about the Daniels arrangement on Oct. 24, 2016.

Cohen testified that he had contacted Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, as a way of getting a hold of Trump, but Blanche asserted that at the time Cohen was actually dealing with a spate of harassing phone calls and was preoccupied with that problem when he spoke with Schiller.

“That was a lie,” Blanche said, “and he got caught red-handed.”

In his testimony, Cohen acknowledged a litany of past lies, many of which he said were intended to protect Trump. But he said he had subsequently told the truth, at great cost: “My entire life has been turned upside-down as a direct result,” he said.

Donald Trump on Monday again denied rape and defamation claims against him by writer E. Jean Carroll, nabbing the attention of her lawyer.

In a post on Truth Social, the former president kicked off with ‘Happy Memorial Day to All,’ and quickly derailed into a tirade against Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan and Carroll’s claims: “TWO separate trials awarded a woman, who I never met before(a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for “DEFAMATION.”

Kaplan presided over the case last year in which a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. Kaplan later ruled in the civil defamation case in January that as president Trump defamed Carroll after she accused him in 2019 of rape. Carroll was awarded $83.3 million in damages, which Trump is appealing.

Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan swiftly responded to Trump’s post, “We have said several times since the last jury verdict in January that all options were on the table. And that remains true today—all options are on the table.”

The Biden campaign also responded to Trump’s post on X and wrote, “Trump posts Memorial Day message with zero mention of fallen American service members, instead calling those who don’t support him “‘Human Scum.'”

Kaplan has previously suggested that another defamation lawsuit could be in store after comments Trump made in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Kaplan said in a statement after the interview aired that, “The statute of limitations for defamation in the most jurisdictions is between one and three years.” Then continued, “As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client, E. Jean Carroll.”

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Kaplan’s response.

It’s impossible to say how long all of that will take, but in a landmark trial that’s already featured its fair share of memorable moments, this week could easily be the most important.

Here’s what to expect in the days ahead:

What happens during closing arguments?

Starting Tuesday morning, prosecutors and defense lawyers will have their final opportunity to address the jury in closing arguments expected to last for much of the day, if not all of it.

The arguments don’t count as evidence in the case charging Trump with falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments during the 2016 presidential election to a porn star who alleged she had a sexual encounter with him a decade earlier. They’ll instead function as hourslong recaps of the key points the lawyers want to leave jurors with before the panel disappears behind closed doors for deliberations.

Look for prosecutors to remind jurors that they can trust the financial paperwork they’ve seen and the witnesses they’ve heard from. That includes porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose account of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump is at the heart of the case, and Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen, who testified that Trump was directly involved in the hush money scheme and authorized payments.

Who’s who in the Trump hush money trial

Key players in the historic first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

Source: AP

It’s worth remembering that the defense, which called only two witnesses but not Trump, doesn’t have to prove anything or convince jurors of Trump’s innocence.

To prevent a conviction, the defense simply needs to convince at least one juror that prosecutors haven’t proved Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard for criminal cases.

Expect the defense to try to poke holes in the government’s case by disputing Daniels’ testimony about her hotel suite encounter with Trump and by distancing Trump from the mechanics of the reimbursements to Cohen, who was responsible for the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.

The defense may also assert one last time that Trump was most concerned about shielding his family from salacious stories, not winning the election, when it comes to the hush money that was paid.

And it’ll certainly attack the credibility of Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the payment and who was accused by Trump’s lawyers of lying even while on the witness stand. How much of his testimony the jury believes will go a long way in determining the outcome of the case.

Since the prosecution has the burden of proof, it will deliver its summation last — the reverse order from opening statements, in which the prosecution went first.

One last thing before the jury deliberates

A critical moment will take place, perhaps Wednesday morning, before the jury begins its deliberations.

Judge Juan M. Merchan is expected to spend about an hour instructing the jury on the law governing the case, providing a roadmap for what it can and cannot take into account as it evaluates the Republican former president’s guilt or innocence.

In an indication of just how important those instructions are, prosecutors and defense lawyers had a spirited debate last week outside the jury’s presence as they sought to persuade Merchan about the instructions he should give.

The Trump team, for instance, sought an instruction informing jurors that the types of hush money payments at issue in Trump’s case are not inherently illegal, a request a prosecutor called “totally inappropriate.” Merchan said such an instruction would go too far and is unnecessary.

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Trump’s team also asked Merchan to consider the “extraordinarily important” nature of the case when issuing his instructions and to urge jurors to reach “very specific findings.” Prosecutors objected to that as well, and Merchan agreed that it would be wrong to deviate from the standard instructions.

“When you say it’s a very important case, you’re asking me to change the law, and I’m not going to do that,” Merchan said.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, requested an instruction that someone’s status as a candidate doesn’t need to be the sole motivation for making a payment that benefits the campaign. Defense lawyers asked for jurors to be told that if a payment would have been made even if the person wasn’t running, it shouldn’t be treated as a campaign contribution.

Once the jury gets the case

The deliberations will proceed in secret, in a room reserved specifically for jurors and in a process that’s intentionally opaque.

Jurors can communicate with the court through notes that ask the judge, for instance, for legal guidance or to have particular excerpts of testimony read back to them. But without knowing what jurors are saying to each other, it’s hard to read too much into the meaning of any note.

It’s anyone’s guess how long the jury will deliberate for and there’s no time limit either. The jury must evaluate 34 counts of falsifying business records, so that could take some time, and a verdict might not come by the end of the week.

To reach a verdict, either guilty or not guilty, all 12 jurors must agree with the decision for the judge to accept it.

Things will get trickier if the jury can’t reach a consensus after several days of deliberations. Though defense lawyers might seek an immediate mistrial, Merchan is likely to call the jurors in and instruct them to keep trying for a verdict and to be willing to reconsider their positions without abandoning their conscience or judgment just to go along with others.

If, after that instruction, the jury still can’t reach a verdict, the judge would have the option to deem the panel hopelessly deadlocked and declare a mistrial.

Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz, Michael R. Sisak and Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.

The request to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon follows a false claim by Trump earlier this week that the FBI agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 were “authorized to shoot me” and were “locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.”

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was referring to the disclosure in a court document that the FBI, during the search, followed a standard use-of-force policy that prohibits the use of deadly force except when the officer conducting the search has a reasonable belief that the “subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.”

The policy is routine and meant to limit the use of force during searches. Prosecutors noted that the search was intentionally conducted when Trump and his family were away and was coordinated with the Secret Service. No force was used.

Prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team said in court papers late Friday that Trump’s statements falsely suggesting that federal agents “were complicit in a plot to assassinate him” expose law enforcement — some of whom prosecutors noted will be called as witnesses at his trial — “to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment.”

“Trump’s repeated mischaracterization of these facts in widely distributed messages as an attempt to kill him, his family, and Secret Service agents has endangered law enforcement officers involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case and threatened the integrity of these proceedings,” prosecutors told Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump.

“A restriction prohibiting future similar statements does not restrict legitimate speech,” they said.

Defense lawyers have objected to the government’s motion, prosecutors said. An attorney for Trump didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday night.

Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this week slammed Trump’s claim as “extremely dangerous.” Garland noted that the document Trump was referring to is a standard policy limiting the use of force that was even used in the consensual search of President Joe Biden’s home as part of an investigation into the Democrat’s handling of classified documents.

Trump faces dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, classified documents that he took with him after he left the White House in 2021, and then obstructing the FBI’s efforts to get them back. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

It’s one of four criminal cases Trump is facing as he seeks to reclaim the White House, but outside of the ongoing New York hush money prosecution, it’s not clear that any of the other three will reach trial before the election.

Trump has already had restrictions placed on his speech in two of the other cases over incendiary comments officials say threaten the integrity of the prosecutions.

In the New York case, Trump has been fined and threatened with jail time for repeatedly violating a gag order that bars him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to the matter.

He’s also subject to a gag order in his federal criminal election interference case in Washington. That order limits what he can say about witnesses, lawyers in the case and court staff, though an appeals court freed him to speak about special counsel Smith, who brought the case.

_____

Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Washington.

Friday found a handful of people already in line for Tuesday’s court session.

They included professional line sitters with pup tents — and Richard Partington, 43, of East Hampton, New York, sitting on the hard pavement with a sleeping bag, pillow and blanket plus a journal to write in. He said he got in the line for the courtroom on Thursday.

“I think a lot of people didn’t even realize you could go inside the courtroom,” Partington said. “And now that the word has spread there’s just a lot more interest.”

Most of the seats inside the courtroom where Trump is on trial are reserved for lawyers, members of Trump’s entourage, security personnel and journalists. But a handful of seats are open to the general public. With news cameras banned from the trial, only people inside the courtroom or in a nearby overflow room with a video link have been able to watch.

In the early days of Trump’s hush money trial, getting one of those few seats for the public required an early start and some dedication. It has only gotten tougher since then. More would-be spectators are showing up as the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president nears its conclusion.

On the 16th day of the trial —May 13 — spectators Joe Adams and Ruth TeBrake told the AP they got seats in the overflow room by joining the line at 6:30 the night before.

“I’ve never done anything like this since I was young, since the ’60s,” said TeBrake, who hails from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. “There was electricity in the air.”

Adams, from Provincetown, Massachusetts, said they used the bathroom at a nearby bar during their overnight stay, tipping the bartenders $20 each for granting permission.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has been charged in a 34-count felony indictment with scheming to bury allegations of extramarital affairs that arose during his first White House campaign in 2016. He has pleaded not guilty and has denounced the proceeding as a politically motivated witch hunt.

Partington, a part-time teacher at a private school, said he’s been inside the trial courtroom four times and inside the overflow room another four times since testimony started on April 22.

“It’s such a learning experience,” he said. “Trump was president and he could be president again, so learning more about him is just interesting.”

Partington said he has not talked about the trial much with his friends or family — just his fellow trial watchers waiting to get into the courthouse.

“To be honest I mostly talk to people here who have been part of the experience because like they can relate to it, you know, what it’s like being in the courtroom and all these things,” he said

Trump’s trial is not the first Partington has attended. He also went to a few sessions of the trial for fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, which was held in a federal courthouse around a corner from the state court where Trump is on trial now. Partington said he found that, too, “very interesting.”

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Judge Juan Merchan “has done a really good job,” Partington said. “I think he’s kept a really, like, orderly courtroom.”

But he doesn’t blame Trump for appearing to possibly nod off at times.

‘I don’t know how he sustains any kind of energy throughout this whole thing,” Partington said, citing long days inside the courtroom and fluorescent lights that “just make you tired.”

Trump addressed supporters in Crotona Park, a public green space in a neighborhood that is among the city’s most diverse and its most impoverished, a change from the majority-white areas where he holds most of his rallies. While the crowd was not quite as diverse as the Bronx as a whole, it included large numbers of Black and Hispanic voters; Spanish was heard throughout the crowd.

In his first major New York rally in eight years, Trump cast himself as a better president for Black and Hispanic voters than Biden as he railed against President Joe Biden’s immigration policies. He insisted “the biggest negative impact” of the influx of migrants in New York is “against our Black population and our Hispanic population who are losing their jobs, losing their housing, losing everything they can lose. They’re the ones that are affected most by what’s happening.”

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Some in the crowd responded by chanting, “Build the wall,” a reference to Trump’s push while in the White House to build a U.S.-Mexico border barrier.

With Trump confined to New York for his trial for much of the last six weeks, the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign has planned a series of local stops across his hometown before and after court. He visited a bodega in Harlem, dropped by a construction site and held a photo op at a local firehouse.

But the Bronx rally is his first event open to the general public as he insists he is making a play to win an overwhelmingly Democratic state that hasn’t backed a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Besides creating a spectacle of rallygoers and protesters, the rally also gave Trump an opportunity to highlight what he argues are advantages on economic and immigration issues that could cut into key Democratic voting blocs.

“The strategy is to demonstrate to the voters of the Bronx and New York that this isn’t your typical presidential election, that Donald Trump is here to represent everybody and get our country back on track,” said Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, a potential Trump running mate who grew up in Brooklyn and spoke at the rally.

The former president opened his rally with an ode to his hometown, talking about its humble beginnings as a small Dutch trading post before becoming a glamorous capital of culture that “inspired the entire world.” While Trump established residency in Florida in 2019, he reminisced on Thursday about his efforts to revitalize Central Park’s Wollman Rink and people he knew in the real estate business.

“Everyone wanted to be here,” he told the enthusiastic audience. “But sadly this is now a city in decline.”

“If a New Yorker can’t save this country,” he went on to say, “no one can.”

Hours before Trump’s rally was set to begin, a long line of supporters decked out in red “Made America Great Again” hats and other Trump gear snaked around the park, waiting for security screening to begin. People were still entering the park an hour into Trump’s speech.

The Bronx Democratic Party protested Trump’s appearance with its own event at the park. Members of multiple unions were present, holding signs that said “The Bronx says no to Trump” in both English and Spanish.

“We are used to elected officials, to government officials, to opportunists of all kinds who come to our community and use our painful history,” said Democratic State Rep. Amanda Septimo, who represents the South Bronx. “They talk about the Bronx and everything that’s wrong with it, but they never get to the part that talks about what they’re going to do for the Bronx and we know that Trump is never going to get to that part in his speech.”

But some locals in the crowd Thursday disagreed.

Margarita Rosario, a 69-year-old who has lived in the borough for more than 60 years, said she saw Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on television the night before suggesting that the Bronx wouldn’t support Trump. It spurred her to show up, holding a Trump flag and a poster that said, “Make America Great Again.”

“I got so annoyed with that. I said, ‘How dare she speak for the whole Bronx?’” Rosario said.

Muhammad Ali, a 50-year-old who lives in the Bronx and said he planned to vote for Trump in November, said he once used to think the former president was a racist but his views have changed.

“We need a patriotic president at the moment and I find Donald Trump more patriotic for the moment than Joe Biden,” said Ali, an immigrant from Bangladesh and worker for New York’s transportation agency.

At least one New Yorker in the crowd said he knew Trump from his days as a local billionaire real estate developer.

Alfredo Rosado, 62, said he’s been a Trump supporter since 1998 when he worked for several months as a fill-in summer doorman at Trump’s Trump Tower building.

Rosado recounted how Trump had asked his name and stopped to chat. “He’s the same person you see,” he said of the former president.

Trump’s campaign believes he can chip away at Biden’s support among Black and Hispanic voters, particularly younger men who may not follow politics closely, but are frustrated by their economic situations and drawn to Trump’s tough-guy persona.

He’s also argued the indictments he faces in New York and elsewhere make him relatable to Black voters frustrated by the criminal justice system, a statement that was harshly criticized by Biden’s allies.

Biden’s campaign on Thursday released two ads aimed at undercutting Trump’s attempts to make inroads with Black voters, highlighting his propagation of the “birther” conspiracy against former President Barack Obama and his calls for the death penalty for five men wrongly convicted of rape in the 1989 Central Park Five case. A radio ad fictionalizing a conversation between a Trump campaign volunteer and a Black voter will air on national Black radio stations while a shorter television spot will air in major cities, in swing states and on digital platforms, aiming to reach voters in the Bronx near Trump’s rally.

The rally comes during a pause in Trump’s criminal hush money trial. Court will resume following the Memorial Day weekend with closing arguments. The jury will then decide whether Trump will become the first former president in the nation’s history to be criminally convicted and whether he will be the first major party presidential candidate to run as a convicted felon.

The Bronx was once the most Democratic borough in the city. Barack Obama won 91.2% of the borough’s vote in 2012, the highest in the state. Biden won 83.5% of the borough in 2020. Trump garnered only 16% of the vote.

The area Trump visited is overwhelmingly non-white — a departure from most of his rally locations. About 65% of residents are Hispanic and 31% Black, according to the U.S. Census data. About 35% live below the poverty line.

The rally is scheduled for 6 p.m. Security measures were well underway early Thursday.

The Bronx rally will be Trump’s first event open to the general public as he insists he is making a play to win an overwhelmingly Democratic state that hasn’t backed a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Besides creating a spectacle of rallygoers and protesters, the rally also allows Trump to highlight what he argues are advantages on economic and immigration issues that could cut into key Democratic voting blocs.

“The strategy is to demonstrate to the voters of the Bronx and New York that this isn’t your typical presidential election, that Donald Trump is here to represent everybody and get our country back on track,” said Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, a potential Trump running mate who grew up in Brooklyn and will join him at the rally.

The Bronx Democratic Party is planning to protest Trump’s appearance with its own event at the park.

“Trump isn’t welcome in the Bronx,” they wrote in a social media advertisement.

A statement from Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson read, “We are a borough of opportunity, diversity, and persevering spirit. We are united by our values and goals, and will not be distracted or divided by shameless political stunts. Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-choice, and anti-working-class messaging doesn’t resonate with Bronxites.”

Trump’s campaign believes he can chip away at President Joe Biden’s support among Black and Hispanic voters, particularly younger men who may not follow politics closely, but are frustrated by their economic situations and drawn to Trump’s tough-guy persona.

He’s also argued the indictments he faces in New York and elsewhere make him relatable to Black voters frustrated by the criminal justice system, a statement that was harshly criticized by Biden’s allies.

The rally comes during a pause in Trump’s criminal hush money trial. Court will resume following the Memorial Day weekend with closing arguments. The jury will then decide whether Trump will become the first former president in the nation’s history to be criminally convicted and whether he will be the first major party presidential candidate to run as a convicted felon.

Several longtime figures in New York politics — both Republican and Democrat — argued there’s good reason for Trump to go to the Bronx and other majority Black and Latino communities.

Ed Cox, chairman of the New York Republican Party, noted that the GOP, in an upset victory, picked up a city council seat from the borough last year for the first time in 40 years. He pointed to the current political climate, with some voters pessimistic about the economy and viewing Biden as weakened.

“As chairman of the party here in New York, I’m not going to write off New York. We’re going to go for it,” he said.

Trump has often pointed to the success of former Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Republican who ran for governor in 2022 against Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul. Zeldin ultimately lost the race by an unusually close margin.

During his campaign, Zeldin appeared in the Bronx alongside the Rev. Rubén Díaz Sr., a former state senator and city council member who had urged Trump to hold a rally in the borough and held a pro-Trump event there Saturday.

While other presidential candidates have visited and met with local leaders, Díaz commended Trump for being “the first and only president or presidential candidate who has shown respect to minority communities in the Bronx” by holding a rally.

Díaz, who remains a Democrat despite backing Trump, said he believes there are others in the borough who will also cross the aisle, pointing to concerns over an influx of migrants that has dominated headlines in New York over budget and safety concerns.

“People are fed up,” he said. “Democrats say they are there to help us … but our people are doing worse under the Democratic control.”

The Bronx was once the most Democratic borough in the city. Barack Obama won 91.2% of the borough’s vote in 2012, the highest anywhere in the state. Biden won 83.5% of the borough in 2020. Trump garnered only 16% of the vote.

The area Trump will be visiting is overwhelmingly non-white — a departure from most of his rally locations. About 65% of residents are Hispanic and 31% Black, according to U.S. Census data. About 35% live below the poverty line.

Trump will not be the first Republican presidential candidate to visit the borough. Ronald Reagan held an event in the South Bronx as he ran against Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1980, delivering a speech at a vacant lot on Charlotte Street. Reagan, according to a New York Times report from the time, likened the area to London in World War II after the German blitz and accused Carter of failing to deliver on promised revitalization efforts. Carter had visited the same spot several years earlier, vowing improvements.

Reagan’s visit was interrupted by protesters, who chanted, “You ain’t going to do nothing,” and “Go back to California.”

Adam Solis, the chairman of the Black Caucus of the New York Young Republican Club, which helped Trump’s campaign organize the event, said the visit to a park where he played growing up shows Trump cares about what he dubbed the “forgotten borough.”

“You can imagine being a Trump supporter in the Bronx. You can get ostracized sometimes,” said Solis, who still lives in the borough.

He also called on any protesters who might choose to demonstrate to remain peaceful.

“I wish any protesters the best. I hope they have fun sharing their views,” he said. “But I just hope they tread lightly. Because disrespect is not accepted in the Bronx.”

The Bronx campaign stop comes days after a Trump campaign stop in Wildwood, New Jersey that was estimated to bring in up to 100,000 attendees, according to the Associated Press.

Trump has teased a possible rally at Madison Square Garden, but nothing has been confirmed by the campaign or the venue.

The former president has been spending more time in New York City over the past two months as a result of the hush money trial against him. Closing summations in the case are expected next week.

Stanley Woodward, a lawyer for Walt Nauta, said prosecutors had targeted his client for prosecution after he refused to cooperate against Trump in the investigation. Nauta was charged alongside Trump last year in a federal case accusing them of conspiring to conceal boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

The defense lawyer also said a prosecutor in the case had warned him earlier in the investigation that he needed to be careful or he would “mess up” his bid for a Washington, D.C., judgeship, a comment Woodward interpreted as designed to get him to pressure Nauta to assist the inquiry.

But David Harbach, a prosecutor with Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which brought the case, called Woodward’s allegations “garbage” and “fantasy.” He said the statements attributed to his colleague, Jay Bratt, had been taken out of context. Woodward said he would be willing to testify under oath about the exchange.

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The encounter laid bare the simmering tensions between the two sides in a case that has been mired in delays and slowed by legal disputes that the Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon, has yet to resolve. The case, among four criminal prosecutions against Trump, had been set for trial on May 20 but Cannon canceled the trial date earlier this month.

Woodward conceded to Cannon that there was insufficient evidence to dismiss the indictment on grounds of vindictive prosecution. But he said there was enough for her to order prosecutors to turn over all communication they had about Nauta to see if hostility existed.

He said he believed his client was only being prosecuted because he refused to testify against Trump and because he asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by refusing to testify a second time before a grand jury.

“There was a campaign to get Mr. Nauta to cooperate in the first federal prosecution of a former president of the United States and when he refused, they prosecuted him,” Woodward told the judge. “That’s a violation of his constitutional rights.”

Prosecutor Harbach pushed back on Woodward’s arguments, saying it was common for defendants to be offered better treatment if they cooperate,

“There is not a single bit of evidence of animus toward Mr. Nauta,” Harbach said,

Trump was not present for the hearing. The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.

The arguments came one day after a newly unsealed motion revealed that defense lawyers are seeking to exclude evidence from the boxes of records that FBI agents seized during an August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago.

The defense lawyers asserted in the motion that the search was unconstitutional and illegal and the FBI affidavit filed in justification of it was tainted by misrepresentations.

Smith’s team rejected each of those accusations and defended the investigative approach as “measured” and “graduated.” It said the search warrant was obtained after investigators collected surveillance video showing what it said was a concerted effort to conceal the boxes of classified documents inside the property.

“The warrant was supported by a detailed affidavit that established probable cause and did not omit any material information. And the warrant provided ample guidance to the FBI agents who conducted the search. Trump identifies no plausible basis to suppress the fruits of that search,” prosecutors wrote.

The defense motion was filed in February but was made public on Tuesday, along with hundreds of pages of documents from the investigation that were filed to the case docket in Florida.

Those include a previously sealed opinion last year from the then-chief judge of the federal court in Washington, which said that Trump’s lawyers, months after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, had turned over four additional documents with classification markings that were found in Trump’s bedroom.

That March 2023 opinion from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell directed a former lead lawyer for Trump in the case to abide by a grand jury subpoena and to turn over materials to investigators, rejecting defense arguments that their cooperation was prohibited by attorney-client privilege and concluding that prosecutors had made a “prima facie” showing that Trump had committed a crime.