Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, June 1, 2024. Here’s what we’ve been doing in Opinion.
A jury in New York, after considering the facts presented by prosecutors and the defense attorneys’ responses to them, rendered a guilty verdict . The citizens on that jury were guided by instructions from a judge who, during the seven-week trial, sought to keep order and ensure the rights of the accused were upheld. Procedurally, this is all as it should have been, and stripped of politics and media frenzy, the conviction of former President Trump on 34 felony counts felt like the end of just another criminal case.
I find it hard to muster much more commentary than that. A judge and a jury in New York did their job, and second-guessing their work is for an appeals court to do. Calling Trump’s conviction a disgrace or impugning the impartiality of the judge or jury — as the former president’s supporters in Congress have done, some more histrionically than others — undermines trust in our justice system and the rule of law.
We are in uncharted territory here; anything we do, any utterance made by a political leader in response to the first-ever felony conviction of a former president, will be assiduously noted by history. But this is an Opinion newsletter, and you come here for commentary, perhaps even of the politically tinged variety. One example of that is the op-ed by former Republican operative Scott Jennings , who argues that Trump’s conviction on.
