The Votes Are In!
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Ex-President Donald Trump. | Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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As SoCal politicians lauded or decried along party lines the conviction of Donald Trump, a USC law professor on Thursday observed that the former president could continue his campaign to regain the office.
Jurors in New York City on Wednesday convicted Trump of 34 felony counts, finding that he falsified records to conceal hush money paid to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels. The payments bought the silencing of Daniels’ allegations during the 2016 presidential campaign that she had sex with Trump about a decade prior.
His sentencing is set for July 11, according to published reports. Trump is free without bond while the judge considers his sentence, which may be prison or probation.
In an interview with City News Service, USC criminal law professor Aya Gruber viewed the case as being “politicized” for one in which there was a lot of evidence for charges she deemed fairly straightforward. She said the jury was attentive to the facts presented at trial and what was happening in the courtroom during the presentation of the evidence.
Trump’s next move most likely is to appeal the guilty-on-all-counts verdict, and Gruber noted that he could “still run for president from jail.”
“I think everybody’s concerned, but depending on how the appeal goes, and what the grounds of appeal are, this may be put to the Supreme Court,” Gruber told CNS. “I don’t know if it’s going to be fast tracked, and I know a lot of people have concerns about the Supreme Court not being exactly unbiased right now.”
She said the verdict does not disqualify Trump from running for president or serving as president at some point in the future, unless something happens during the appeal process and his conviction stands.
The conviction may stop Trump from voting for president because as a voter registered in Florida, laws in that state prevent people convicted of felonies in Florida from voting if they have not finished the full terms of sentence. Different rules are in effect, however, if a Florida voter is convicted of a felony in another state.
If Trump receives a jail sentence, the Florida clemency board — which consists of Republicans Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis — could restore his voting rights, the Tampa Bay Times reported.