The Verdict

First, apologies to my listeners. I should be with you today. We are flying back from Vegas and are about to head to the airport after I write this. Normally, I’d put my family on the plane, stay behind, do the show, and take a later flight. But my wife got sick in Vegas. We got her fluids yesterday, but I didn’t feel comfortable putting her and the kids on a plane in Vegas without me there. Thanks to Jeff Katz for his willingness to fill in. I’ll be back on Monday. The story will still be relevant and fresh.

I have a lot of thoughts about the verdict. I’ll just say a few things now.

First, your sins will find you out. There is not really a doubt that Trump did have sex with Stormy Daniels while married to his current wife, who had just had a child. Character does count.

Second, the people you surround yourself with matters. Michael Cohen is a piece of work, but he worked for Trump.

Third, none of those things are crimes.

The crime is a documentary fraud that had its statute of limitations extended by tying it to a larger crime. Even after the verdict yesterday, Alvin Bragg tied it again to the 2016 election. But those federal election crimes are not prosecutable by the several states and I continue to believe a federal court will not allow the state to use a federal campaign finance violation as a way to extend a state statute of limitations.

Fourth, this DA and the Attorney General of New York campaigned on prosecuting Donald Trump. They did not target a random person. They were fulfilling campaign promises to prosecute a political opponent. That this does not bother people on the left sets a precedent they will regret. That both chose to pursue him for fraud for which no one was defrauded is a bridge too far for me.

I continue to think he should not have been found guilty, but I do not necessarily fault the jury. The judge and prosecution aligned the case exactly as they wanted and steered the jury there. But it was also pretty improbable that Trump would get a jury in Manhattan that favored him.

There are places in America where you cannot get a fair trial. And, given this story of the present New York City District Attorney, had Trump been a black Democrat there’d have been no prosecution. It is now time for the appellate process to take up the case.

One of the things that really gets me with all of this is the continued self-righteousness of the Democrats on this. They refuse to see the Rubicon they have taken the country across and they really do believe the ends justify the means. They want to stop Donald Trump at any cost and they care nothing for justice if justice requires fairness to Trump. The consequences of this are going to be deeply destructive long term, but they will justify it, defend it, and excuse everything right up until the moment someone from the right reciprocates all because they believe he got what he deserves.

I think they might have just helped Trump because of that. A significant portion of the country already thought this case was a matter of lawfare. Trump has a particular grievance that a Democrat judge and Democrat DA in a Democrat city would never give him a fair trial.

A lot of partisans of the right will now seek to delegitimize the entire constitutional system just as the left is doing. Some were already trying. It will pick up steam. Both sides have decided that the country is post-constitutional and might makes right.

The left will not yet appreciate what they have done and will never accept responsibility for what is coming. But a partisan side that has spent the better part of May trying to delegitimize a Supreme Court they do not control really cannot expect the right to honor the institutions the left controls. A partisan side that got the vapors over chants of “Lock Her Up,” deliberately pursued a strategy of trying to find anything over which they could lock up their opponent. To many, many people on the center-right, not just Trump supporters, the left has projected their own vices onto the right and now acted on them.

If your view of America, the American judicial system, or our constitutional system is dramatically revised because of twelve jurors and a court in one of the most progressive cities in America, your view of America is too small. If you think this will not upset the American system, your imagination is too limited.

Those of you so moved can donate to Donald Trump’s campaign here.

On the matter of raw politics, this would be a good time for Trump to pick Tim Scott.

Americans prefer herpes to Kamala Harris. Americans hate both Biden and Trump overall. But Americans like Tim Scott. So give them a guy like that and they’ll have one politician they like standing behind one they don’t much care for but many think got a raw deal. Then they can contrast that with a guy they really don’t like with a woman they loath standing behind him.

Peggy Noonan’s latest Wall Street Journal column has this paragraph that points to this:

The tragedy is that one of two old men, neither of them great, neither of them distinguished in terms of character or intellect, who are each in his way an embarrassment, and whom two-thirds of voters do not want as presidential candidates, will be chosen, in this crucial historical moment in which the stakes could not be higher, to lead the most powerful nation on earth.

One will likely fail physically in coming years—he’s failing now—and be replaced by a vice president who is wholly unsuited for the presidency because she is wholly unserious, who has had four years to prove herself in a baseline way and failed to meet even the modest standards by which vice presidents are judged. The other may, on being elected or even before then, be thrown into the slammer for one of the felony charges against him, including those connected to attempting to overthrow a democratic national election.

This is a tragedy—that this is what we’ve got, these are our choices.

Trump would change that dynamic immediately by picking a nice guy who is a descendant of slaves who’d be matched against a daughter of immigrants who are, in fact, descendants of slave owners. Is it not wild that the first black Vice President is of immigrant and slave-owning descent? Scott would be check-mate.

Also, do it next week and the conversation changes entirely.

This is not the end, but the beginning for Trump’s general election campaign. Putting sentencing right before the Republican National Convention makes it look even more partisan and gives Trump greater grievances to sell a public that, right now, views Trump’s time in office more favorable to Biden’s current time in office.

I suspect, to the extent this decision matters with the public, it will galvanize soft Republican support for Trump more than it galvanizes any opposition to Trump. It reeks of lawfare and Americans do not like lawfare.

Lastly, today is going to be one hell of a day for everyone to drop all the news they want buried, ignored, or covered up. Enterprising people will pay attention to the news that does not make the news because there’s no better day to let slip the stuff you hope no one notices.