SHORTLY AFTER 10pm Irish time last night, Donald Trump was found guilty of all 34 charges in the landmark hush-money case.
A jury of his peers in New York found the former President guilty of buying the silence of porn star Storm Daniels in the run up to the 2016 election and covering his tracks by falsifying business records.
With just five months to go until the 2024 US Presidential election in which Donald Trump is seeking a second term, he has become the first former US President to be convicted of a crime.
Here’s how some of his biggest supporters have reacted to the news.
Earlier this week, Trump claimed that not even Mother Teresa could beat the charges, which he repeatedly labelled as “rigged.”
This narrative is one accepted and disseminated by Trump’s allies.
J.D Vance, a Republican US Senator for Ohio, who is among those rumoured to be Trump’s running mate in this year’s election dubbed the jury’s verdict “electoral interference”.
Vance is the author of Hillbilly Elegy, the bestselling 2016 auto-biography which was often pointed to at the time as a useful insight as to why working-class white Americans supported Trump.
Although previously critical of Trump, Vance has been vocally supportive of Trump since he ran for public office in 2022.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Vance said last night that the decision is a “disgrace to the rule of law” and to the US Constitution.
He maintains Democrats “invented a felony to get Trump” and said this was done with the help of a “Soros funded prosecutor and a Biden donor Judge”.
He added that they “rigged the entire case”.
This decision is a disgrace to the rule of law and our Constitution.
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) May 30, 2024
Dems invented a felony to "get Trump," with the help of a Soros funded prosecutor and a Biden donor Judge, who rigged the entire case to get this outcome.
This isn't justice, it's election interference.
Meanwhile, the Florida Senator Marco Rubio dubbed the court case “a political show trial”.
Rubio, who is also considered to be in the running to be Trump’s vice president pick, said on X “Biden and the Trump deranged left will stop at nothing to remain in power”.
He added that the verdict is a complete travesty that makes a mockery of the US legal system.
Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who has been a long-time supporter of Trump and has seen his personal wealth soar due to his affiliation to Trump’s MAGA campaign, took to X to pose the question: “How many Republican DAs or AG’s have stones?”
Translation for us readers in Ireland: How many Republican District Attorneys or Attorney Generals have balls. He may also have meant stones in a figurative sense – as in stones that they are will to throw at Democrats – but this seems unlikely.
Kirk continued: “We aren’t a serious political movement until we are ready to fight fire with fire. Indict the left, or lose America.”
The New York Times has previously described Kirk as someone who walks the line between “mainstream conservative opinion and outright disinformation”.
Meanwhile, official Team Trump has already gotten back out on the campaign trail, telling voters that the real verdict will be delivered on election day on November 5 and perpetuating the idea that the trial was rigged.
One text message sent to supporters from his camp called Trump a “political prisoner” even though his sentencing does not take place until July.
The campaign also began selling black Make America Great Again caps to reflect a “dark day in history”.
RIGGED. pic.twitter.com/8rX2P22iu0
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) May 30, 2024
Using the slogan “Never Surrender”, Team Trump has been urging American voters that the best way to “fight back” is to donate to Trump’s election campaign.
His supporters and family have also been pushing the idea that the verdict is an attack on the American people, with Trump’s daughter in-law Lara Trump posting a Trump quote on X: “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, I’m just in the way.”
Contains reporting from Press Association.
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