The conviction president: Donald Trump guilty of falsifying documents

US President Joe Biden on Friday tried to use Donald Trump’s conviction to reframe the race as a referendum on his GOP predecessor after months of trailing him in the polls.

Former president Donald Trump leaves the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York after being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying documents. Picture: AFP

A defiant Donald Trump has moved to weaponise his historic status as the first US president ever convicted of a crime to rally his supporters against a “rigged” ­justice system and his bitter political rival, President Joe Biden, as he faces the prospect of prison and losing his chance to regain the Oval Office.

In a move that has plunged a divided US into more uncertainty, the Republican nominee for president on Thursday (Friday AEST) was convicted by a Manhattan jury of 34 felony charges that could carry a prison sentence of up to four years each.

The verdict sent shockwaves through US politics and handed Mr Biden a potentially big political win fewer than six months from the presidential election.

After a six-week trial, Mr Trump was handed a guilty verdict on all 34 charges after about 10 hours of deliberations, leaving judge Juan Merchan, whom the former president has repeatedly accused of bias, to decide his fate.

Mr Trump will discover on July 11 if he will be forced to spend time in jail – just four days before Republicans are set to gather in the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin and anoint him as their nominee for president.

A furious Mr Trump, who turns 78 this month, vowed to appeal the verdict and declared November 5, election day, to be the real test of his innocence. “I didn’t do a thing wrong. I’m a very innocent man – it’s OK. I’m fighting for our country, I’m fighting for our Constitution. Our whole country is being rigged right now,” he said outside the courtroom.

Returning to arguments he had made daily after each day of trial he was required to attend in person, he added: “This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound, to hurt an opponent – a political opponent.”

As Mr Trump hurtles towards the November rematch with Mr Biden, the incumbent Democratic President on Friday tried to use the conviction to reframe the race as a referendum on his Republican predecessor after months of trailing him in battleground state polls. “There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval ­Office: at the ballot box,” Mr Biden said.

With Australia closely watching the US election and the aftershocks it could have for the AUKUS nuclear submarine pact and the superpower’s stance on China and energy, Anthony Albanese sidestepped questions about Mr Trump’s conviction.

The Prime Minister pledged to work with whoever was elected in November but noted he got on “very well” with Mr Biden.

“I obviously have, people might have observed, a close relationship with President Biden,” Mr Albanese said. “We get on very well, but the relationship between Australia and the United States is a relationship between nations, not just between individuals.

“(Mr Trump’s conviction) is a matter for the United States.”

Legal experts expect Mr Trump to escape jail time as he has no prior convictions and the charges are considered minor – but the threat of incarceration remains.

Mr Trump was found guilty of falsifying documents in relation to the payment of $US130,000 to ­former porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election via his former ­private lawyer Michael Cohen, in order to buy her silence so the news wouldn’t affect the election campaign.

Legal experts were surprised by the verdict, which relied heavily on the testimony of Mr Cohen, a ­convicted fraudster who revealed under cross-examination that he had stolen from Mr Trump.

Senior Republicans immediately moved to back their leader. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, a close ally of Mr Trump, said: “Today is a shameful day in American history … This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one. The weaponisation of our justice system has been a hallmark of the Biden administration, and the decision is further evidence that Democrats will stop at nothing to silence dissent and crush their political opponents.”

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Picture: Getty Images

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whom Mr Trump defeated in the battle for the Republican nomination and who has been a harsh critic of the ex-president, said the verdict reflected the “political debasement” of the justice system. “If the defendant were not Donald Trump, this case would never have been brought, the judge would have never issued similar rulings, and the jury would have never returned a guilty verdict,” Mr DeSantis said.

While Mr Biden has recovered in national polls in the past few months and is almost level with Mr Trump, most data suggests he would lose in key states such as Arizona, Georgia and Michigan if an election were held today and deny him the Electoral College numbers needed for re-election.

US President Joe Biden. Picture: Getty Images

Mr Trump’s prospects of victory in November had been increasing throughout the trial.

But multiple polls suggest Mr Biden would take the lead with voters if Mr Trump were convicted, and both campaigns will now be looking at their plans to win over independent voters and anti-Trump Republicans who supported alternatives such as South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Mr Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, one of his few outspoken critics within the Republican Party, said the verdict was a “fire bell in the night” and the party should now nominate an alternative candidate such as Ms Haley.

“The Republican Party now has one last chance to change course, and not nominate a convicted felon for president,” Mr Bolton said.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Picture: Getty Images

Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges over a year after they were passed over by federal prosecutors and his predecessor, said the verdict reflected an impartial US judicial system and praised the jury for delivering a verdict “without fear or favour”.

“The 12 everyday jurors vowed to make a decision based on the evidence and the law, and the evidence and the law alone,” Mr Bragg said. “Their deliberations led them to a unanimous conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Donald J. Trump, is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal a scheme to corrupt the 2016 election.”

A Biden campaign spokesman said Mr Trump was “running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution, pledging to be a dictator ‘on day one’ and calling for our constitution to be ‘terminated’ so he can regain and keep power”.

“A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans’ freedoms and fomenting political violence – and the American people will reject it this November,” the spokesman said.

Mr Trump who has protested his innocence throughout the trial is facing the prospect of three further criminal trials related to his handling of classified documents and allegations he sought to overturn the 2020 election.