Front Burner - Donald Trump is a convicted felon

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

A New York jury has found former U.S. president Donald Trump guilty of 34 charges of falsifying business records to conceal payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.This makes Trump the first American president to be found guilty of a felony.Just six months out from election day, voters are left with an unprecedented scenario in which a convicted felon could become the next President of the United States.Perry Stein is a justice reporter for the Washington Post, where she is also the co-author of the Trump Trials newsletter. She's here to talk about the conviction and what comes next for Trump and America. Help us make Front Burner even better by filling out this audience survey.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Yesterday, after deliberating for more than nine hours over two days, a jury of his peers found former U.S. President Donald Trump guilty on 34 charges in the state of New York, making him the first American president to be found guilty

of a felony. This conviction, not to be confused with the three other pending criminal cases involving Trump, stems from a hush money scheme involving payments made to a woman alleged to be his former mistress. You probably know her by her stage name, Stormy Daniels. In the lead up to the 2016 election, Donald Trump had his then attorney, Michael Cohen, pay Ms. Daniels $130,000 to sign a non-disclosure agreement about any previous sexual encounters that they had had. A sum that was then paid back to Cohen by one of Trump's companies. Now, while paying hush money is not illegal on its face, making cash payments in order to hide undesirable information prior to an election and falsifying records related to that payment is.

It should be said that former President Trump is expected to quickly appeal the court's decision and continues to deny any sexual involvement with Daniels. And though it's unlikely that these charges will lead to Donald Trump behind bars, each count does carry a maximum sentence of four years. For almost anyone else, this kind of situation would likely end a presidential bid. of situation would likely end a presidential bid. But for a man that has long positioned himself as the victim of state overreach or the deep state, it stands to reason that the same might not be true of Trump. So just six months out from Election Day, voters are now left with an unprecedented scenario in which a convicted felon may very well become the next president of the United States.

Perry Stein is a justice reporter for The Washington Post, where she is also the co-author of the Trump Trials newsletter. She's my guest today to talk about the conviction of the former U.S. president and what comes next for Donald Trump and America. Perry, I want to thank you so much for making the time to talk to us tonight, just a few hours after this really unprecedented verdict. Yeah, I mean, this is the first former president in American history to be convicted of a crime. Let's start with Trump's reaction to what happened today. What did the former president have to say for himself? So he said what he said much throughout this trial and in the,

you know, months preceding it. This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It's a rigged trial, a disgrace. Most of the stuff has been said without evidence or has been falsely said. But that is what he said, that this is rigged. But the major thing that he said was he told the American people in a video statement after the verdict came down that the voters will decide the real verdict, that this will be decided at the election ballot. So, you know, he's going to continue on campaigning. I mean, in the legal system, right, he is guilty, that is without doubt. But to his point, the impact of this on his political future will be decided by voters.

Yeah. And I want to get into that a little bit more with you today. So but first, this decision came very quickly, right? Just tell me if you were surprised by that and what that might tell us, what that told you. You know, I wasn't making any predictions on how long it would take. You just don't know. You don't know the personalities or what the jury was thinking during the weeks of testimony. But once it came down, once I heard there was a verdict, I assumed that it was going to be a guilty conviction and not a hung jury. Because if it was a hung jury, you would have expected it

to take longer than this, I think. And the fact that it was all counts, I think it's 34, right? Like, does that make sense to you? Yeah. I mean, again, I make no predictions in this, but you know, the counts were all the same. They could have divided, there were two checks that apparently didn't have a signature on it. They could have divided it by that. They could have said, I mean, the 34 counts related to false sophistication of business records on invoices, checks and ledgers. I guess it's plausible the jury could have divided it into some of those buckets. But, I mean, 34 counts of the same counts, I guess I wasn't totally surprised that they went the same way

on all the counts, but I guess I wouldn't have been surprised the other way either. I'm so curious to pick your brain on this. As somebody who has followed this case so closely, I know obviously, as you said, you can't put yourselves in the minds of the jurors. We don't know exactly what they were thinking. But, you know, as somebody who watched the trial, what testimonies and what evidence do you think most likely moved them to to convict here? I think it's a mix of two things, right? I think that David Pecker and Stormy Daniels and her lawyer, Pete Davidson, who testified really. And sorry, let me take a step back. Right. In order to convict to get a conviction, prosecutors had to prove not just that he falsified business records, but that he did so in an effort to impact the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and violated some laws related to that.

So they had to put it and Trump has said he wanted this alleged affair that he denies with Stormy Daniels covered up because he didn't want his wife to know. So they had to prove the election thing. And I think that some of those witnesses did a pretty effective job on that. You had Stormy Daniels lawyer saying, hey, we knew that Stormy Daniels story, right, the value price to purchase it so she will not go public would go down after the election. We knew it wouldn't be worth anything after the election. And Trump's people said, yeah, Trump was trying to push off paying it till after the election. And you had so those were an interesting day. A lot of witnesses that effectively kind of tied this to the election.

And then the, you know, the closer, I guess, and I didn't know what the jury would think of him was Michael Cohen, right? This is Trump's fixer. He's got a,

he's a problematic witness in that he's been convicted of crimes, including lying to Congress, but he had to be the one to connect Donald Trump to this, right? Like you'd say that Donald Trump knew that these business records were falsified. Donald Trump orchestrated this scheme. So he was the important one in terms of that. And while he had credibility issues, I mean, it seems at least he didn't, at the very least, he didn't sink the case for the prosecution.

Right. The jury found that he was essentially credible enough for for them to obviously come to this verdict. So we talked about how Donald Trump said this is far from over, right? And just from a legal procedural perspective here, what happens next? What happens now? So, I mean, he can appeal the case, and I think he's expected to appeal the case. That could take a long time. Like, I would doubt that that would happen before the election, right? That an appeal would be, anything's possible, right? But that these things move slowly, that an appeal would make it through the court system. Considering how high stakes this is, is there a scenario in which it could be fast-tracked through the court system? Yeah, anything is possible, I guess. You know, New York State works differently than federal court, but that process is typically slow. I mean,

the question is, is do they put off some other parts of this, right, until an appeals goes through, right? He has a sentencing hearing in July. This isn't a violent crime. This isn't like, even if, I mean, right, we've said, we've reported that it's likely that he will not get prison time just because he's a first he's a 77 year old first time non-violent offender but even you know i guess it's possible that a judge could put off you know some of the sentencing stuff until an appeals but you know we just don't know i mean it's not like you know i i do think that he will it is likely that he will go to the he will be on the ballot in November as a convicted felon. If the sentence isn't likely prison, like what might it be?

I don't know. I mean, he could get like home confinement or he could get some sort of probation that he can't do certain things. So it could be a number of things. can't do certain things. So it could be a number of things. I guess one question I do have, and sorry if it's like a kind of naive one, if he were to become president, could he just pardon himself? So that is a good question. And there's a lot of, I mean, first of all, let me take a step back. This is a state crime, right? So, you know, he, a governor, pardon, state crimes, not a president. The federal cases, right, he faces two state cases and two federal cases. So he has more authority over the federal cases than he would over a state case, right? But New York is different. So essentially, on this one, I mean, I think there's a lot of

legal scholars, whether he could pardon himself anyways, questions about that. But on this one, you know, this is a state case. So he would not have that authority. He would not have as much authority over that. So his recourse is really through the appeals process. And just another procedural question for you on this on this case, how high up could an appeal go on a case like this? Would it and could it conceivably go all the way up to the Supreme Court? That is unlikely. Right. I mean, because, again, it is a state's court, so it would go up to the equivalent of the New York State Supreme Court. state courts if it like i don't know if your viewers followed this but the colorado case to

get trump off the ballot saying that he participated in an insurrection because that had to deal with presidential powers after it went up to the colorado supreme court it went to the federal supreme court this case remember now the these are dealing he made the payments right while he was president but a lot of the crime, you know, the lot of intent, a lot of part of this crime occurred before he was president. So I would imagine presidential powers wouldn't play a big role in this. So yeah, it seems unlikely that it would go up to the federal Supreme Court, but I'm not a Supreme Court reporter. So I don't want to say for sure, but it seems very unlikely.

So I don't want to say for sure, but it seems very unlikely. You mentioned these the three other cases that he's facing, you know, involving an effort to overturn the 2020 election and the improper use of classified documents. Just very briefly, where are we at with these other cases? Is there a scenario in which we see trials for them before the November election? I think there's this, I mean, anything is possible and anything is not possible. I think that, for instance, the Florida case, we don't even have a date anymore. She moved it to a, this is Judge Cannon in Florida, she moved it to, said it was indefinitely postponed. The way the pretrial dates that she said have been established, have been scheduled, makes it, I would say, highly unlikely that that one would happen before the election. But again,

things could change. The D.C. one, it could in theory, I think there's a lot of people that I've talked to that think it could happen before the election. Right now, if you recall, it's tied up in the Supreme Court on this idea of question of presidential immunity. Trump has claimed that presidential immunity from criminal prosecution should extend to the activities that are alleged in that federal D.C. indictment. So the Supreme Court is, you know, we think they could deliver a decision in the next, you know, in June or so, June or July, which means that, let's say it needs 90 days, July, August, it could go before the election. Right now, though, at this current moment, is it fair for me to say that save for the July 11th sentencing on this case, on the hush money case, he's kind of wide open,

right? Like to campaign and, you know, yeah. He has some pretrial proceedings that he has to be at. But right now, if you look at night, no three of them have current trial dates that go before the election. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples.

Sorry, I'm asking you so many legal questions, but if I could throw one more at you, just picking up on what we were talking about before, this idea that he might be able, like whether or not he could pardon himself on this conviction, on the Hush Money case conviction, just to kind of summarize what we were saying before, is it fair for me to say that on these three other cases, like he could conceivably get into office and then try to pardon himself, maybe even before he goes to trial on these cases? I'm sure it would be a fight and people would disagree with him, but that's conceivable, right? I don't, I mean, look, I think a lot of this is debated on election by scholars on this. You know, this has never been tested. And I think what is the scenario that I

have turned up to say more likely is if they don't go to trial and he wins, Trump could try to get an attorney general, right? Trump nominates the attorney general, then that attorney general is confirmed by the Senate. He could try to get an attorney general who would dismiss the cases, he could try to get an attorney general who would dismiss the cases, right? So say we're dropping charges. Right, right. So that is a scenario I've heard. You know, we know his attorney generals don't always do what he wants them to do. But if he wins the election, that is a scenario that is one that could happen. Okay. And if you're president, can you be subjected to ongoing trials or would they be on pause just automatically? That's a good, yeah. DOJ guidance. I mean, look, all of this is untested stuff, but like

DOJ policy. So I'm sorry, the federal department of justice guidance and policy is that, you know, a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime or be prosecuted. So I think that would extend to going to trial. So if he, you know, if he is elected and the charges remain without going to trial, it is conceivable that he could go to trial after he leaves office. Got it. Right. Gotcha. Okay. And I'll just end this conversation. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time with a question that's maybe a little bit less legal and more political. Considering the fact that we probably won't see verdicts in these other cases before election day, but we do have this verdict right now. Do we have any sense of whether or not Americans will care enough about

this verdict for it to influence their votes? Like, has there been any polling on this? I know it would have been a hypothetical question at the time, but do we think that they're going to care enough for it to influence how they vote? I have no idea. I mean, look, I know Donald Trump would probably have rather not been convicted, I would guess. So if that says anything, but look, he had these three or four mounting indictments and he won the is expected to win the Republican nominee. So, you know, that is, you know, it didn't dissuade Republican voters from electing him in the general election. I don't know. We work on slim margins here. So who's to say? Perry, thank you so much for this. This is really interesting, and we really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so much.

All right, that is all for today. Front Burner was produced this week by Matt Alma, Allie Janes, Matt Mews, Derek Vanderwyk, and Ben Lopez-Steven. Sound design was by Matt Cameron and Marco Luciano. Music is by Joseph Chabison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chao. Our executive producer is Mick McKay-Blocos. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you on Monday.