On May 30, former president Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels. His sentencing has been scheduled for July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention. He faces a possible sentence of four years for each count.
If you were on Twitter or Instagram or your social media platform of choice that historic Thursday afternoon, then you will have noticed two diametrically opposed reactions. On one side, people celebrated like it was the very best day of their entire lives, as justice, at last, was served. On the other side of the space-time Twitter-uum, it was a very, very somber day for the country.
So. . . which is it? Did Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg at long last rightly and justly prosecute Trump for felony crimes? Or was this an obviously political witch trial and an abuse of the U.S. justice system? In other words: Have we crossed the Rubicon in American politics? After all, District Attorney Bragg campaigned on a promise to bring charges against Trump.
And either way, the reality is that the presidential front-runner is now a convicted felon. What does that mean? For voters? (Spoiler: it made them want to give him. . . more money.) For future elections? And for this country?
To debate these questions on Honestly today are Sarah Isgur and Mark Zauderer.
Sarah is a columnist for The Dispatch and an ABC News contributor. She clerked for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and served as the Justice Department spokeswoman during the Trump administration.
Mark is a veteran New York litigator who sits on a committee that screens applicants for the same court that will hear Trump’s appeal.
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Honestly, do not waste your time with this episode of the podcast. It’s a conversation between two Trump hating lawyers moderated by a Trump hating journalist. One lawyer spews complete nonsense while the other makes mild criticisms of the way this case was handled. At the end, all three have a big belly laugh about a person they hate being subjected to criminal prosecution. A useful debate would have pitted either of these two lightweights against someone like Alan Dershowitz, also no friend of the former President, but not afflicted with TDS. Do better - honestly!
The only question is: If Trump had retired to Mar a Lago, would the case have still come? If we are honest with ourselves, no matter our allegiances to Party or Politician, we would say "NO". Because of this, we have passed the Zenith of the slippery slope and will hurtle downwards...